The next President has the chance to either help the U.S. increase its lead around innovation or watch our country fall further back into a morass of bad policies and failed programs. Working with Engine, a tech policy organization, Tusk Ventures looked at where each of the candidates stands on tech-related issues. So how did they do? Not so great. More
Tag Index / Showing 1 - 18 of 18 results for “STEM”
Empowering Women One Brand at a Time
Women are everywhere. No surprise, right? They do, after all, make up 50 percent of the world’s population. Yet, everywhere we look, women are a topic of conversation. Michelle Obama’s outfit choices on a recent tour of Japan are proclaimed to break down female stereotypes. Sweaty, jiggling, and fabulous women exercising on our screens chant “This girl can.” A woman’s mob killing in Afghanistan sparks a global #JusticeForFarkhunda movement. The banning of "India’s Daughter," a documentary about the gang rape in Delhi, raises hackles across the globe. Meanwhile, Ellen Pao's lawsuit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins sheds light on sexism in Silicon Valley, even if she lost. More
Educators Unite to Build Vietnam’s Tech Talent
Vietnam’s tech industry is booming. For growth to continue, however, Vietnam must cultivate an increasingly skilled tech workforce and develop new capabilities in research, problem solving, and client service. But building such capabilities requires a major mindset shift at educational institutions, which typically emphasize rote learning over problem solving. Such a change will also challenge companies that opt for rigid hierarchy over the flatter structures that encourage creativity and initiative. To overcome these challenges, many Vietnamese tech companies are partnering with educators, NGOs, and government agencies. Although some companies still think of Vietnam as simply a place for cheap labor, the forward-thinking ones know the country has deeper potential. More
Computer Science in Vietnam: Counting Down to the Hour of Code
Events surrounding this week's Hour of Code coincide with Computer Science Education week. Vietnam will have 26 different hosts, ranging from universities and high schools to private corporations. However, only two of the participating high schools are local schools under the Department of Education. The remaining are international or private schools. But don’t be too concerned about the lack of participation from public secondary schools. In fact, the rest of the world is really only catching up to Vietnam, whose public schools are known for introducing computer science into the curriculum at a very early age. More
Bio & Life Sciences Energy & Green Tech Government
Techonomic Top 5: Reanimating the Woolly Mammoth, Facebook Drones, and more
The passenger pigeon became extinct in 1914, though not long before it flew in flocks that could number in the billions (yes, with a "b"). But a group of scientists has teamed up with tech visionary Stewart Brand in spearheading an effort to bring the species back to life. The so-called de-extinction project could reanimate long-lost species like the woolly mammoth and even mitigate environmental threats like melting permafrost, according to some. More
Government Learning Partner Insights
Will All Schools Have Nanotechnology Labs?
Setting up high school students with atomic-force microscopes and optical profilers so they can study nanotechnology may seem like a science teacher’s dream, but it’s already happening in at least one school in the United States. And the amount of outside financial support received by Wheeling High School in Illinois to make the lab a reality, coupled with efforts to encourage teachers to emphasize the field, suggests that more labs may soon be cropping up. The focus on nanotech in Wheeling and elsewhere speaks to its potential. More
Arts & Culture Learning Techonomy Events
Why STEM Isn’t Enough to Train Tomorrow’s Creators
In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama committed to “reward schools that develop new partnerships with colleges and employers, and create classes that focus on science, technology, engineering, and math—the skills today’s employers are looking for to fill jobs right now and in the future.” Yet employers realize that it’s not only hard to find good developers; good designers are big difference makers as well. If we want to make the next generation of “artrepreneurs,” we need to add A for the Arts to turn STEM to STEAM. More
America’s Economic Recovery Hinges on STEM Education
Of all of the potential threats to an economic recovery in the United States, one issue stands above the rest for companies like Dow. The issue isn’t tax reform. It isn’t energy prices. It’s not even budget issues in Washington. All of those are important. Perhaps the most important issue for us at Dow—the one that has the potential to either wreck or resurrect the American economy—is whether this country has enough qualified workers to sustain the economic recovery that we see looming just over the horizon. More
Girl Develop It Instructor Calls Out “Bogus Stereotypes”: Girls CAN Code
Jennifer Mozen helps lead software development teams and would like to see more women in her field. By day, she is a delivery principal at Chicago-based web development and digital consulting firm Table XI. In her spare time, she is a volunteer coding instructor with Girl Develop It, a nonprofit organization with chapters in 15 U.S. cities, Sydney, and Ottawa that provides software development training and mentorship for women. In this Q&A, Mozen tells Techonomy’s Andrea Ozretic that she sees a big shift coming in the demographics of software development. More
What Is Blerdology?
Blerds unite! Blerdeology, a social enterprise to support and engage the black startup and STEM community, is rallying blerds (black nerds) across the country with its “Blerd’s Night Out Tour.” Blerdology is the first organization to produce hackathons specifically targeting African-Americans, and these summer networking events aim to showcase rising black innovators and engage minority startup ecosystems. More
Why Zuckerberg Wants Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Washington appears best suited to screwing up good ideas, even when more or less everyone there agrees it's a good idea. Fiscal Times here examines the politics and details surrounding tech-oriented immigration reform, including increasing H-1B visas, letting immigrant PhDs in STEM subjects stay in the U.S., and exempting entrepreneurs who are creating jobs from deportation. Because these are such logical reforms, they can't be passed individually but must become part of a comprehensive package, because Congress typically weighs down no-brainer bills with stupid amendments. Thus, Zuckerberg's new pro-immigration lobbying group FWD.us wisely supports a comprehensive bill, though it's hard to achieve. More
Girls Who Code Aims to Bridge Tech-Sector Gender Gap
Girls Who Code is a Manhattan-based nonprofit aimed at teaching high school girls software programming, public speaking, product development, and other skills that prepare them to launch careers in the tech sector. It's one of a number of recent initiatives designed to encourage young women to set their sights on jobs in the often male-dominated world of tech. Programs like Hackbright Academy, Girl Develop It, Black Girls Code, and Girls Teaching Girls Code seek to bridge the gender gap in tech by offering hands-on computer science instruction for students on the verge of making decisions about their future studies. More
A High-Altitude Hack to Bridge the Skills Gap
Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, spoke at Techonomy 2011 about why broadband access should be a universal human right. Now, Touré's United Nations agency is partnering with British Airways to look for ways to match emerging talent with new jobs in tech. The two organizations have formed the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and launched an initiative, called "UnGrounded," that aims to identify the engineering, science, and tech skills most needed for today's job market, and create opportunities for training and talent discovery. The project will literally take off this summer when a group of CEOs, founders, and investors use an 11-hour transcontinental flight as a high-altitude hackathon, taking them from San Francisco to London, where they will present their ideas at ISD's Decide Now Act (DNA) Summit. More
Jobs Learning Techonomy Events
It’s Time to Find the Women in Tech
"Where are all the women?" is an irritatingly common refrain in tech circles. Plenty of executives and investors, male and female, are seeking to advance more women in technology. But how? We need to take a three-pronged approach, bolstering education, opportunity, and visibility for women in technology. Increasing the pipeline of qualified women is a first step. Improving girls' access to science, technology, engineering, and math education is vital: organizations like the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy are investing heavily in so-called STEM initiatives. Get girls interested in science and math, the thinking goes, and they grow up into women earning 33 percent more than their peers in non-STEM jobs. More
Worried About Student Debt? Major in STEM
Student debt is so widespread that two-thirds of the class of 2010 graduated with loans averaging $25,250 each, according to the Project on Student Debt. At the same time, some experts say the country is facing a shortage of workers in STEM fields—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. This means that it may be easier to find good-paying jobs in these fields.Is the STEM shortage a way out of student loan woes? Perhaps if more students choose to study a STEM subject, the country would see less student debt. More
STEM Knowledge an Increasing Necessity for All Workers
STEM skills aren't just for job-hunters in tech fields. As reported in SmartPlanet, Dr. Richard Larson of MIT believes that STEM literacy goes far deeper than understanding numbers, formulas, and gadgetry. More
From Dinosaur Bones to Cookies, 3D Printing Expands in Colleges
Colleges are finding more uses for 3D printing, from art students creating sculptures of futuristic animals, to engineering students developing zero gravity fuel storage, to biology professors replicating dinosaur bones. All disciplines have the potential to benefit from 3D printing, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, especially as the technology becomes more sophisticated and less expensive. Many professors are supporters of controversial open-source 3D printers, an affordable do-it-yourself approach where printers are designed from online instructions based on expired patents. Despite impending patent disputes, proponents see open-source 3D printers as a way to bring the technology to the masses, offer more experimentation in the classroom, and attract younger students to STEM fields. One university class even printed 8,000 edible cookies for visiting high-school students—a huge hit for the potential engineers of the future. More
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