Opening doors for Hispanic students to pursue the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. What started out as the simple premise behind January's announcement of a historic alliance among IBM, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC), has now instead turned into a door opener for innovation.
This summer SciTech 2020 math/science camps are opening around the U.S. for incoming Hispanic high school sophomores. Over sessions lasting four days on three college campuses, SciTech 2020 campers will dive into STEM subjects with fun lab experiments, math contests, tours of IBM and other activities. For a taste of the full "college experience," the students will stay overnight in dorms.
When we announced this alliance, we said it was our way of putting a stake in the future of our country," said Raul Cosio, vice president, services, Systems & Technology Group. "As the camps begin to open, we're realizing it's a tremendous opportunity to inspire young people to explore STEM careers. And the innovative ways in which we're helping them learn these fields adds all the more value to the experience."
An added plus
There's another value of SciTech 2020, and it's targeted to the program administrators - all of whom are from IBM, SHPE or HENAAC. During the years following each camper's visit, the alliance will follow that camper's academic journey through school and beyond.
"Keeping in touch is the best measure for ensuring young people stay focused on their goals," Cosio added. "So we have a number of measures in place that will enable us to reach the end result of an invigorated talent pool of Hispanic students." Among those measures are keeping track of student demographics, surveying students to evaluate the camp experience, inviting camp alumnus to mentor new campers, launching a camp Web site; and perhaps most important - tracking and assessing the number of camp alums who graduate from high school, apply to college, receive acceptances and choose to major in STEM-related fields/disciplines. Parental involvement is key to the success of SciTech. Consequently, parents were invited to participate in bilingual workshops such as financing college education.
"IBM, SHPE and HENAAC are focused on the future," Cosio concludes. "SciTech 2020 is a dream come true for our organizations, and we're focused on using our collective innovative thoughts to shape our world."
Can you put this in a box?
The SciTech 2020 summer camps are scheduled to take place:
- June 20-23 at The University of Arizona in Tucson
- Aug. 1-4 at The University of Colorado at Boulder
- Aug. 15-18 at California State University Los Angeles
Each camp can accommodate 40 students who live within 50 miles of the campus.