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Industry
Tech Leaders Tell Interns What They Wish They Knew At Age 20 (TechCrunch)
Hundreds of Bay Area interns lined up on Tuesday to hear some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley share what they wished they knew when they were 20 at a recruiting event called Internapalooza. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz, early PayPal and Airbnb investor Keith Rabois, Indiegogo co-founder Danae Ringelmann, Yelp VP of Engineering Michael Stoppelman and Re/code founder Kara Swisher were among the 11 speakers whose advice ranged from whether or not you should drop out of school to launch a startup to how to network. The event was organized by Cory Levy, who at 19 co-founded One, a mobile app that connects you to others with similar interests. 
Diversity in STEM
Twitter�s Diversity Report Is More Of The Same (TechCrunch)
Twitter released its diversity numbers on Wednesday afternoon after mounting pressure from civil rights groups � and they�re pretty bad if you�re not a white or Asian guy. Overall, Twitter�s employees are 70 percent male and 30 percent female. However when you look specifically at employees in tech, the gender gap grows, and 90 percent are male. Looking at ethnic diversity, 59 percent of employees are white, and 29 percent are Asian. Only 2 percent of employees self-reporting as Black or African-American and 3 percent Hispanic or Latino. This is a stark contrast from the company�s user base, which has had a disproportionately high following among African Americans for years.
SMU STEM Program for Minority Students receives $2.6 million Dept. of Defense grant (North Dallas Gazette)
Joy Brown-Bryant would like to be U.S. surgeon general one day. But first, the 14-year-old from Oakland, California, wants to help reconstruct the faces of military burn victims as a plastic surgeon. As one of 100 seventh- and eighth-grade minority STEMPREP Project students at Southern Methodist University this summer, she is part of a program that boasts an impressive success rate � 100% of STEMPREP project students who finish the program attend college and 83% go on to graduate school to become physicians, pharmacists, dentists, researchers or engineers. The U.S. Department of Defense recently awarded the STEMPREP Project a $2.6 million grant to support its goal of increasing the number of minorities in STEM fields.
In tech, some minorities are too minor. This group wants to change that. (Fortune)
To even be considered for a Code2040 fellowship, a student must be black or Hispanic�two demographics vastly underrepresented in the tech industry. Before Randi Williams spent last summer in San Francisco, the 19-year-old computer-engineering student from Maryland had only one idea on how to break into the tech industry: Get a bachelor�s degree, get a master�s degree, then start applying for jobs. It�s a formula that seems routine except, perhaps, in Silicon Valley, where internships, connections, and even dropping out of college can be a means to a job at a tech startup. But a fellowship program with Code2040, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, flipped her script.
Government
Obama Meets Apollo 11 Astronauts to Mark Moon Landing's 45th Anniversary (Mashable)
To celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, U.S. President Barack Obama met with members of the crew on Tuesday, including Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Michael Collins and Carol Armstrong, the widow of Neil Armstrong. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Spending about two hours and 31 minutes on its surface, the astronauts collected some 47 pounds of samples and conducted four experiments, before returning to their spacecraft. This year�s White House meeting marks the first major anniversary without mission commander Armstrong, who died in 2012 at the age of 82, according to NBC News.
Miss America Goes to Washington (U.S. News & World Report)
Call it a meeting of the old and the beautiful. Members of Congress and Education Secretary Arne Duncan met with Miss America Nina Davuluri this week to talk [STEM] education. The Miss America Foundation and Davuluri � herself a science grad from the University of Michigan � have made STEM learning one of their platforms. When the annual pageant returns in September, it will for the second time offer a range of STEM scholarships to its contestants. �Sixty percent of the contestants on the Miss America stage were involved in STEM-related fields: PT school, PA school, engineers,� she says..
NSA targets college students to fill cyber professionals shortage (USA Today)
In response to a shortage of cyber professionals in the U.S., the National Security Agency is reaching out to a younger crowd: college students. Beginning in 2012, the NSA started its National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations Program at select universities across the nation to attract students to the field. On July 14, the agency announced that five new schools would join the program, bringing the number of participating universities to 13. The new recruits include New York University, Towson University in Maryland, The United States Military Academy, University of Cincinnati and University of New Orleans.
Higher Education
MTU grant to help science education in schools (ABC 10 UP)
Michigan Tech announced that it has received a $5 million grant that they will use to reform middle school science education. The three-year grant was presented to MTU by the Midland-based Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. The foundation will be funding the Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform Program. Dr. Brad Baltensperger, a MTU research professor, said the program will shake up how science is taught in the classroom. �This project is really about a new science curriculum for the middle school, new assessments to determine if the students are learning and new preparation for teachers, whether it�s new teachers or existing teachers, so that they�d be prepared to teach this new high-standards science curriculum,� he said.
Program introduces middle schoolers to technology and manufacturing (Memphis Business Journal)
Two years after launching its Industrial Readiness Training program, a group of faculty members at Southwest Tennessee Community College began to explore the possibility of reaching students before they reached high school. The idea, which was originally discussed by Ayana Alshams-Brooks, a training specialist at Southwest, would help identify students with an interest and the aptitude for manufacturing or information technology careers. But in order to ensure those kids took the right classes in high school, they needed to be reached before they got there. �After a lot of planning and brainstorming, we decided to do a one-week pilot program that focused on IT, manufacturing and art,� Alshams-Brooks said.
Summer STEM Camps Wrapping Up at FSU Panama City (WMBB)
All of last week and this week, kids have been taking part in STEM camps held at FSU Panama City. Last week was all about the middle schoolers, but it was the high schoolers turn this go-around. For the most part the material covered during both camps was the same. However, being just a little bit older, the high schoolers got the chance to work with some more advanced, and pretty cool equipment, including Sam E. Nole, FSU PC's programmable robot. Sam E. Nole programmer and camp instructor, Brandon Yates says, more and more the way that people are achieving economic and worldwide success is through technology..
Science Centers
Pacific Science Center CEO to retire (Puget Sound Business Journal)
R. Bryce Seidl, the president and CEO of Pacific Science Center since 2003, is retiring later this year. Seidl replaced George Moynihan, who served as executive director for 23 years, 11 years ago. The center noted that during Seidl's 11 years as CEO, more than 10 million visitors have toured the center at Seattle Center. �This decision is timely and right for both me and the organization. We are at the end of a capital campaign and the end of a fiscal year. We are in a good position to design and implement a new chapter for our future," Seidl said in a statement.
Viewpoints
Michele Nash-Hoff: STEM Education Matters to Our National Security, Innovation and World Leadership (HuffPost ImpactX)
Over the last 230 years, the United States became a global leader, in large part, through the genius and hard work of its scientists, engineers and innovators. Today, a little over four percent of the workforce is employed directly in science, engineering and technology. Yet, this small group of workers is critical to economic innovation and productivity. SME (formerly Society of Manufacturing Engineers) "Making Manufacturing Cool" program and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) "Dream It. Do It." program are helping to expose our youth to the modern manufacturing environment and change the image of manufacturing to one that is "cool" and full of exciting career opportunities.
STEM Food & Ag
UC Davis, Chinese university to create food-safety center (Sacramento Business Journal)
.jpg) The University of California Davis took another step in establishing itself as a leader in food science and research, signing an agreement Wednesday that establishes a Sino-U.S. Joint Research Center for Food Safety in China. The memorandum of agreement will extend over the next five years. It calls for the center's two lead universities � UC Davis and China's Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University in Shaanxi province � to "form a joint research team and research platform, carry out collaborative research projects and cooperate on other food safety-related projects," according to a UC Davis news release. UC Davis' World Food Center � which is looking to expand in a big way in the Sacramento region, forming a "third campus"� will identify a director to coordinate the research program. "Substantial funding" for the new center is expected from the Chinese partners. |
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Applications due August 1st for ASU & Verizon Foundation Innovation Through Design Thinking Program
 Arizona State University and the Verizon Foundation have announced a $27,500 grant opportunity for high schools selected to participate in the Innovation Through Design Thinking Program, a unique experience in which high school educators will learn how to teach design-thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship and STEM skill-building by collaborating with local businesses to solve real-world challenges through mobile app development. The program uses a 'train-the-trainer' model which will grow a strong community of innovative teachers where students need them the most. Applications are due August 1.
International Space Station and National Geographic Learning Team Up for Science Education
 The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and National Geographic Learning (NGL) today announced a partnership in the development of a science education initiative designed to engage young learners in STEM education. CASIS is the sole manager of the U.S. National Laboratory on the International Space Station (ISS). Through this collaboration, CASIS brings the high-interest world of space-related science and engineering together with National Geographic Learning's educational expertise and spirit of exploration to create a unique learning environment that targets elementary school students and teachers. Fully aligned to next generation science standards, the programming will deliver content related to space travel and space-based research in a highly engaging model designed for elementary science classrooms.
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AFA Announces 2014 National Teacher of the Year (PRNewswire)
 The Air Force Association (AFA) is proud to announce Kaci Heins, a dedicated teacher at Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff, AZ, as the recipient of the 2014 National Teacher of the Year Award. Mrs. Heins distinguished herself by integrating aerospace into her classroom, school and community. Her entire science curriculum has NASA and STEM engineering design challenges integrated to provide hands-on and real world experiences for her 6th grade students. Some of these engineering projects include solar ovens, wind turbine design, heat shield testing, water filtration, plant growth chambers, balloon rockets and high altitude ballooning. The overall goal of this project-based learning is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. As AFA's National Teacher of the Year, Mrs. Heins will receive a $3,000 cash award. |
