Broadcom Foundation Sponsors National STEM Challenge Champions and “Tech For Good” Category!

Broadcom Foundation announces its “Tech for Good” sponsorship of the inaugural National STEM Challenge and is funding twenty-five of the one hundred and twenty-six National STEM Champions. These students will be recognized at the first-ever National STEM Festival in Washington, D.C., co-presented by EXPLR and the U.S. Department of Education from April 13-14, 2024. Meet them HERE.

“Broadcom Foundation has taken a leadership role in the National STEM Challenge in order to heighten national awareness about the importance of preparing young women and all underrepresented, and under-resourced youth in urban, rural, and tribal communities to compete for highly skilled jobs of emerging industries built on technologies of the future,” said Paula Golden, President of the Broadcom Foundation. “The foundation’s Tech for Good sponsorship enables it to elevate its core mission to advance STEM education, ensure equitable access to broadband internet and promote basic coding as a critical 21^st century skill needed to solve problems enunciated in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.”

“Many students selected as National STEM Champions used basic coding for research, data analysis or prototyping,” noted Golden. “Young people are finding innovative ways to solve global problems that directly impact their community such as health, sanitation, energy, climate change. The National STEM Champions will inspire others to learn this skill to solve problems they care about.”

The foundation advocates:

• Digital literacy is a critical skill for communicating, acquiring an education, finding meaningful employment, and being an informed citizen in modern society.
• Coding enables young people to become creative STEM problem-solvers who can think critically, communicate, collaborate, be persistent, and become experts in the digital world.
• Learning coding skills to solve a community problem that middle school students care about helps reverse the trend of declining interest in mathematics, science, and engineering.
• Basic coding skills are useful in App design, digital arts, entertainment, 3D design and manufacture, and growth engineering fields.
• Digital Literacy outreach programs such as Code Clubs, Coolest Projects Global, sponsored science fairs, and allied programs provide opportunities for employees at companies like Broadcom Inc. to volunteer as mentors and judges in communities where they live and work.

Presented by EXPLR, the National STEM Challenge invited students in grades 6-12 from across the U.S. and its territories to conceive and submit STEM innovations, inventions, and research across six categories: Environmental Stewardship, Future Food, Health and Medicine, Powering the Planet, Space Innovation, and Tech for Good.

Broadcom Foundation’s support for “Tech for Good” recognizes the importance of coding in solving problems and challenges in the community.

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