Submitted by Nancy Mwirotsi, founder and executive director, Pi515 It feels like there’s a growing gap between our state’s youths and long-term career security and opportunity. This gap jeopardizes our ability to develop a future-ready workforce. As a community, we need to start having collective conversations that allow us to bridge this gap. We must […]
Fifteen Des Moines-area nonprofit groups and schools are the recipients of Meta Community Action Grants, Meta Altoona Data Center has announced. (Meta previously was known as Facebook Inc.) The grants total more than $200,000. The grant program was created to address needs in eastern Polk County and for improving STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) […]
Some conversations at the 10th Future Ready Iowa Summit, held on Sept. 16, dialed in on the T in STEM. One breakout session had a panel discuss what employers need from K-12 schools to recruit and retain their technology workforces. Tyler Wyngarden, vice president of development at the Technology Association of Iowa, sat on the […]
Fall enrollment numbers showed nearly 60% of Iowa State students are majoring in a STEM field and enrollment of new first-year students rose by 6% despite an overall enrollment decrease for the university. “Students are eager to embrace Iowa State’s innovative mindset and enhance their classroom learning with undergraduate research, learning communities and many experiential […]
The 2021 Future Ready Iowa Summit is titled “Transforming Education for the Workforce” and will connect educators and employers from across the state with the goal of increasing work-based learning as well as computer science and STEM education. Emily Calandrelli, a STEM advocate and co-executive producer of Netflix’s “Emily’s Wonder Labs,” will be the keynote speaker, and […]
The Technology Association of Iowa will host the 2021 Iowa High School Tech Summit presented by Principal virtually on April 20, from 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., TAI announced this week. The Summit is free and open to all Iowa high school students and educators; educators are encouraged to register their classes for the Summit. […]
Iowa founder Nancy Mwirotsi and philanthropist John Pappajohn. Pappajohn committed $100,000 and support from staff at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center network to help Mwirotsi expand the 6-year-old tech education nonprofit Pi515 in Iowa. Contributed photo Early this fall, Des Moines founder Nancy Mwirotsi was surprised to take a call from noted philanthropist and Iowa […]
DMACC and Microsoft are co-hosting a free “Careers 4 Women in Technology” virtual event available to young women interested in pursuing a career in technology, DMACC announced this week. The event will be held Oct. 13 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on the Microsoft Teams app. A panel of five women who have built careers […]
The STEM Next Opportunity Fund announced a multiyear $50,000 grant to the Iowa Afterschool Alliance as part of the Million Girls Moonshot, an initiative launched by the Intel Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The effort is designed to engage 1 million school-age girls in the U.S. in […]
Yen Verhoeven, founder of Qi Learning Research Group Photo provided If you aren’t a parent yourself, just ask one on Twitter: The new home-schooling normal has not been an easy road for many. For elementary school teachers, adjusting lesson plans to a Zoom screen with a gallery of tiny faces peering back might just be […]