April 1st marks Loyola Academy’s annual Solidarity Week.  Monday will kick off the event with several guest speakers who specialize in this year’s theme of technology.

Campus Ministry chose technology as the theme this year because it is “most relevant to our school,” explained Mr. Knoth, who is a main force in planning Solidarity Week.

Maeve Riley, junior, says “It’s so important to be educated on something we use daily.”

Mr. Knoth hopes “everyone shows up” and “everyone has at least one takeaway.”  With the broad theme of technology, each student is sure to find one subject they find interesting.  From technology for the blind to energy efficiency to video games, there is truly something for everyone.

One presentation that will surely be of interest to a majority of students is a technology sniffing black lab named Browser.  Nico Green, junior, says he is looking forward to the presentation on the cyber crime fighting canine because it is “something students will actually be interested in.”

Browser is owned by the Waukegan Police Department and lives with Carol Gudbrandsen.  He is specially trained to sniff out a chemical bonding agent used in the manufacturing of electronics, leading his police team to the source of various cyber crimes.  Browser’s main task is fighting child exploitation, specifically searching for external hard drives.

Browser took over the job previously held by Carol who had to manually search for these hard drives.  Now, Carol brings Browser along on the jobs and he alerts the team when he has found something.

Carol has to comb through every video and image that are stored on the hard drives Browser finds.  In addition to his main focus, Browser also acts as a therapy dog for Carol due to the disturbing images she sees of children exploited by these cyber crimes.

Browser was specially trained by Todd Jordan who has been training dogs for twenty one years.  In more recent years, Jordan has switched his training methods to ensure his dogs are ready to effectively fight cyber crimes.  He uses only Labradors for this type of work.