Ryan Torbey: An Advocate for Computer Science as a Civil Rights Issue
The Cognizant Foundation and Teach For America are proud to recognize the inaugural winners of the Cognizant Innovation in Computer Science Education Awards—these awards identify PK-12 educators and leaders who have demonstrated measurable impact expanding access to and advocating for computer science education.
Below is a profile of award winner Ryan Torbey, Ph.D., co-founder of CS4TX in Austin, Texas.
Throughout his career, Ryan Torbey has taught more than 600 students ranging from K-8th grade and guided more than 100 teachers in developing computer science teaching skills. His research has led to increased interest in the link between student math training and computer science coursework, which eventually led the state of Texas to consider removing Algebra I as a prerequisite for the Computer Science I course.
In 2015, Ryan co-founded the Texas Alliance for Computer Science Education, which later became CS4TX. His work at CS4TX has been instrumental in the creation and passage of bills such as House Bill 2984, which instructs state education agencies to create a strategic plan for K-12 computer science.
To Ryan, access to computer science is a civil rights issue. He emphasizes the need to focus on the lack of access to computer science education for underrepresented students and specifically notes the data surrounding these inequities. For example, Ryan and his team “obsessively” track demographic enrollment data and are centering everything they do in the belief that computer science should be for everyone.
“The purpose of education is to prepare students to be successful in their time and place,” said Ryan. “We live in an age of ever-increasing technological power and importance, but our education system is failing to educate the vast majority of students in even the fundamentals of computer science.”
Before founding CS4TX, Ryan was an educator at Marina Lake Community School on the Navajo Nation through Teach For America, which sparked his interest in increasing access to computer science education.
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Meet all of the winners
Learn more about the other educators and innovators recognized as the inaugural winners of the Cognizant Innovation in Computer Science Education Awards: