Broadcom Foundation – Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future: Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende Expands Digital Literacy for Youth
Program Highlights
As Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the 2025 theme “Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future,” Broadcom Foundation celebrates its partnership with Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende in the heart of central Mexico. Here, families gather for books, concerts, theater, and STEAM learning. More than a library, the Biblioteca is the cultural and educational hub of this colonial city and brings STEM learning, coding, and robotics to the community. Just as pioneers like Ellen Ochoa, Ali Guarneros Luna, and Ana Maria Rey inspire new generations, the team at the Biblioteca is preparing young people in San Miguel and surrounding rural communities to succeed in a digital world.
From Coding Clubs to Community-Wide Innovation
Biblioteca’s digital literacy programs began several years ago with a small after-school code club program for middle schoolers. Broadcom Foundation’s sponsorship provided the resources for computers and helped access free Raspberry Pi Foundation resources that have sparked interest in digital literacy throughout the community.
“When looking for partners to explore how the foundation could establish a Raspberry Pi Code Club in an informal learning space, I reached out to the Biblioteca Pública,” said Paula Golden, President of the Broadcom Foundation. “What has transpired over the past three years is nothing short of miraculous. The leadership of this extraordinary public library has cast this institution as a cornerstone of STEM learning, bringing digital literacy to underserved children in San Miguel.”
Marie Moébius, Biblioteca’s Executive Director, describes this transformation as essential to Biblioteca’s mission: “Our role is to provide opportunities for young people and families to discover new skills. Coding and robotics have become part of the way we connect culture, education, and innovation for the whole community.”
Engaging Young People through Coding and Robotics
Biblioteca has built a program where children learn through project-based learning. “I adapt lessons to the interests of the youth,” STEAM Coordinator Miguel López explained. “If they like building, we use Lego sets. If they like art, we combine coding with creativity. When they see their projects come alive, their curiosity deepens.”
Last December, children proudly presented their Scratch-designed coding applications for solutions to local environmental problems to their parents. One child designed a video game about cleaning the sea, and others built websites about ecosystems. Their proud and amazed parents filled the library patio to celebrate their achievements and to learn about coding, some for the first time. Golden notes, “This event crystalized for everyone that coding can be a powerful tool to solve local environmental challenges by combining knowledge of science with digital learning. The event planned for 2026 will be much bigger and encompass all aspects of STEM as well as arts and history.”
The Biblioteca staff has moved workshops into more visible spaces in its vast facility, where passers-by are invited to observe and join in. This public-facing approach to project-based learning has changed the perception of what a library can be. As Moébius noted, “Some teenagers think libraries are uncool. But when they come here and see coding and robotics alongside music and theater, they realize it is a place where their interests are valued.”
Camps, Showcases, and a Growing STEM Ecosystem
Beyond afterschool clubs, Biblioteca runs a summer camp that blends creativity and STEM. Scholarships make these opportunities accessible, and the annual Easter camp, always STEM-focused, is free of charge. “We want to ensure that every child, no matter their background, can participate,” Moébius emphasized. An upcoming STEM fair will highlight robotics and coding projects and connect rural schools through broadcasts. “The talent is here at Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende. Thank you, Broadcom Foundation, for giving our young people the resources and platform to shine.”
Expanding Digital Literacy to All Ages
The Biblioteca’s reach goes beyond youth. López has already led successful AI classes for adults, focusing on practical applications. “It is not about teaching complicated algorithms,” he said. “It is about showing how AI can help in everyday life.”
Plans are underway to responsibly adapt AI learning for younger students, using Raspberry Pi’s Experience AI resources. Another long-term goal is the creation of a repository of STEM teaching resources for rural schoolteachers, enabling them to teach Digital Literacy in their communities without traveling long distances for training.
Honoring the Past to Inspire the Future.
Broadcom Foundation partners with Wiki Education to highlight stories and biographies of unsung Hispanic heroes and heroines. Ellen Ochoa, first Hispanic woman in space and former Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, paved the way for generations of Hispanic innovators in science and engineering. Today, leaders such as Ali Guarneros Luna and Ana Maria Rey show young people what is possible through perseverance and leadership. Guarneros Luna, a Mexican-born NASA aerospace engineer, has contributed to small satellite missions that expand access to space technology, while Rey, a Columbian theoretical physicist and MacArthur Fellow, is advancing quantum physics through groundbreaking research. Broadcom Foundation’s support of the Wiki Education outreach program, ensures that Hispanic engineers and scientists are more visible online, offering young people worldwide the role models they need to imagine themselves as scientists, engineers, and innovators.
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.
