Broadcom Foundation Celebrates Native American Heritage Month: Inspiring Indigenous Youth
Program Highlights
During Native American Heritage Month, Broadcom Foundation celebrates students who excelled at AISES National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair (NAISEF) and the National STEM Festival—and highlights an indigenous STEM heroine on the Wikipedia platform, which the foundation promotes through WikiEdu.org.
With Broadcom Foundation’s support, NAISEF has expanded its reach among Native youth, who are discovering that coding is a valuable skill that helps solve community problems they care about, doubling participation in the middle school division. Broadcom Coding with Commitment® recognizes students in middle school who combine STEM learning with coding to solve a problem that aligns with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Through this award, Native American young people are encouraged to think creatively, problem-solve, and apply STEM to real-world community challenges. With guidance from NAISEF Director Chloe Roughface Smith, partner schools receive critical resources and mentoring that have reduced barriers to participation.
“Thanks to the Broadcom Foundation sponsorship and Broadcom Coding with Commitment® award, NAISEF participants gain expanded access and resources that empower indigenous youth to deepen their STEM projects—especially in coding and software disciplines,” said Ms. Smith. “This support aligns perfectly with NAISEF and AISES’ mission to acknowledge and uplift Indigenous students in science and engineering, strengthen their research, and build pathways into STEM careers.”
Mateo Madrid Larranaga and Adam Sanchez-Cruz
Mateo Madrid Larranaga and Adam Sanchez-Cruz earned the 2025 Broadcom Coding with Commitment® recognition by creating a Music Assistive Device for Hearing-Impaired Musicians. Their project unites art, technology, empathy, and creativity by enabling hearing-impaired musicians like Mateo’s sister to experience rhythm and melody through light and vibration.
Young Natives Showcase STEM Talent at the 2025 National STEM Festival
Natashia Anderson with Broadcom Inc.'s Pamela Liou (center) and Broadcom Foundation's Cheryl Braun and Maria Wronski
Among this year’s exceptional Native Americans showing their work at the Broadcom Foundation-sponsored 2025 National STEM Festival was Natashia Anderson from the Navajo Nation in Farmington, New Mexico. Anderson who showcased her research on hip compressive stress and the evolution of total hip replacements, integrating anthropometric modeling, cadaver studies, and such modern materials as titanium and ceramic.
Motivated by her mentor’s surgery and her younger sister’s hip injury due to sports, Anderson connected her findings to injury prevention for Native youth athletes.
Another inspiring National STEM Champion was Stephen Swallow, a Lakota youth honored by tribal elders and featured in the Lakota Times March 5, 2025, article, who earned national recognition for his project on the biosorbent potential of river sand aggregates in filtering turbid water. Stephen’s experiment demonstrated that river sand biofilters could remove turbidity by up to 96%.
“As a Lakota, my project inspiration comes from a deep-rooted connection to all living things. In our Lakota culture, water is sacred. Water is the source of life for all beings on Earth,” said Swallow. “Many communities like ours face challenges with access to clean water. This project is about ensuring that my people, my community, and other living organisms have access to safe water.”
Stephen Swallow with Broadcom Inc.'s Pamela Liou
Programs like AISES Native American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and the National STEM Festival demonstrate how mentorship and access to technology empower youth to learn basic coding as essential problem-solving tools in STEM and fostering active civic engagement by "thinking globally while acting locally.”
Inspiring the Next Generation: Publishing Biographies of Native American STEM Pioneers in Wikipedia
Generations of Native American scientists and engineers have paved the way for young people like Mateo, Adam, Natashia and Stephen. Broadcom Foundation is a proud sponsor of WikiEdu.org, which taps college and university faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and Tribal Colleges to assign students the task of writing biographies of unsung, notable STEM pioneers who resemble them.
Mary G. Ross
Wikipedia entries, such as the biography of Mary G. Ross, inspire and inform young native STEM enthusiasts to follow their dreams. Mary G. Ross, the first Native American woman engineer at Lockheed, was raised in the Cherokee tradition that instilled a lifelong commitment to learning. She helped develop early satellite systems and design concepts for interplanetary missions, including Apollo and the Venus-Mars flyby. Her story inspires young women to reach beyond the stars and pursue engineering with vision and determination.
ABOUT:
Broadcom Inc. is an American company and global technology leader that designs, develops, and supplies a broad range of semiconductor, enterprise software and security solutions. Solutions include service provider and enterprise networking and storage, mobile device and broadband connectivity, mainframe, cybersecurity, and private and hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Broadcom Foundation is a corporate nonprofit that advocates equitable access to STEM education and acquiring digital literacy as essential for attaining meaningful employment and becoming productive citizens in a tech-driven society. The foundation promotes basic coding as a critical 21st Century+ skill that all young people need to be creative STEM problem solvers who think critically, communicate and collaborate and who will help realize the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
