Photograph by Jeff Kearns

InternalDrive's management team (from left) Jennifer Campain, Kathryn Ingram, Kevin Painchaud and Paul Cauchi are all pulling together to get their new Los Gatos-based company ready for this summer's kickoff class of computer campers.

Computer camp offers classes aimed at helping young girls

By Jeff Kearns

Alexa Ingram-Cauchi is at it again.

Twentysomething entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are old hat, but Ingram-Cauchi, 28, is already helping start a second company, internalDrive, a high-tech camp for kids that pays special attention to girls.

Last year, she was one of the co-founders of Computer Adventures (profiled in the Weekly-Times May 20, 1998). That company is still around, but last year Ingram-Cauchi sold her stake in the business to co-founder and fellow University of Washington grad Pete Finley.

Now, she's teaming up with her family and a friend, Jennifer Campain, 31, for a revised version of the computer camp business she sold to her partner last year.

Campaign and Ingram-Cauchi's brother, Pete are the two owners, and her parents, Kathryn Ingram and Paul Cauchi are also helping run the company, which is based in their Los Gatos home. (Alexa is working for the company as a consultant, but she says she may become a staff member later.)

Also on staff are several Los Gatos High School grads, most of whom graduated with Alexa and Paul--Kevin Painchaud, Chad Meserve, Michael Mueller, Sean Crandall and Sarah Motola.

The company will offer computer camps for kids 8-16 this summer at four California schools: CSU-Monterey Bay, Santa Clara University, UC-Irvine and St. Mary's College. Youngsters can stay from one week to as many as four, and either live in the dorms or just go during the day. Different camps run at different times, but the first class starts June 27, and the last campers go home Aug, 20.

After that, there's Technopalooza, a special festival and concert planned for all campers and parents on August 21 that will feature three San Francisco bands and the "Multimedia Museum" where campers show off their projects.

Parents will almost certainly be curious about what their kids did all those days, especially after they write the checks: the price is $495 for one week of day camp and $800 for a week in the dorms. That's about the going rate for computer camp these days.

Girls get special attention in some sections of the camp, which are designed to make girls feel welcome in the high-tech world. They can choose one of the classes designed for them, or tough it out with the boys. Either way, its one thing internalDrive does that campers can't find at other camps.

"Girls lose their interest in science and technology before they graduate from high school," Campain says. "They're not given enough opportunities to pursue it, and they just aren't encouraged."

Alexa Ingram-Cauchi says the lack of women in the field is an industry-wide problem, which is something she hopes to help change. With a couple weeks left before camp starts, she estimates enrollment is running about 35 to 40 percent female.

Campers can choose from three core curriculum topics--multimedia, programming (C++ and Java) or Web authoring. In one of the supplemental classes offered in the evening, campers get a taste of robotics by creating an interface between the computer and a robotic arm.

There's also a tech support lab, where campers tear apart computers and put them back together again to build up their testing and troubleshooting skills. And when they're done, they can take home the machines--outdated models donated by Fujitsu, the camp's main sponsor.

Camp staff plan to take campers out to field trips to nearby high-tech companies, like the presentation center at SGI in Mountain View, where campers will get a tour of headquarters and a chance to try out some of that company's high-end workstations.

For more information, call 888-709-8324 or point browsers to www.idtechcamps.com.

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