STEM Engine: Knowledge Saves Lives
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The BIOCOM Institute fosters the next generation of STEM leaders who may potentially save lives through scientific discovery. We are perpetuating a new ethic of service where companies are leading as community builders and industry professionals are dedicating themselves as volunteers. We help schools infuse real world examples into curriculum in order to increase the number of under-represented youth exposed to STEM career pathways. A robust system is needed that will link these businesses with learning institutions to ensure that our students are workforce ready. An online infrastructure that will build off existing partnerships and proven resources to offer a low-cost program that is sustainable and easy to scale-up. This mechanism is called the STEM Engine.
About You
About You
First Name
Kristie
Last Name
Grover
About Your Organization
Organization Name
BIOCOM Institute
Organization Website
Organization Phone
858-455-0300n x107
Organization Address
4510 Executive Drive, Plaza One, San Diego, CA 92121
Organization Country
United States
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
1‐5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
STEM Engine: Knowledge Saves Lives
What change do you want to bring to the world?
The BIOCOM Institute fosters the next generation of STEM leaders who may potentially save lives through scientific discovery. We are perpetuating a new ethic of service where companies are leading as community builders and industry professionals are dedicating themselves as volunteers. We help schools infuse real world examples into curriculum in order to increase the number of under-represented youth exposed to STEM career pathways. A robust system is needed that will link these businesses with learning institutions to ensure that our students are workforce ready. An online infrastructure that will build off existing partnerships and proven resources to offer a low-cost program that is sustainable and easy to scale-up. This mechanism is called the STEM Engine.
What are the primary activities of your project?
In addressing our workforce issues, the importance of STEM education cannot be overemphasized. Programs that engage students in these areas will have a profound impact on their decisions to pursue science in higher education and in future careers. The STEM Engine will have a significant impact on the quality of teaching and learning of science in local schools. The ultimate goal of the STEM Engine project is to improve education in the STEM disciplines.
Primary activities include:
- Benchmarking the progress of the project to share with other regions and STEM education organizations
- Creating a web-enabled database with performance tracking and activity reporting mechanisms
- Developing a pipeline of STEM innovators
- Dissemination of research findings
- Expanding a regional inventory of informal science education volunteer opportunities
- Generating students’ excitement in STEM-related careers by bringing information about the latest innovations to them in the classroom
- Helping teachers by training them what students need to learn in the classroom to get started in STEM related careers
- Leveraging partnerships to facilitate outreach and resource collaboration
- Matching STEM industry representatives with schools, teachers and students
- The development of an appreciation program to recognize companies who participate
This online system will ensure that every hour of time that volunteers commit is spent doing something that's actually going to make a difference, that every resource contributed is actually going to go to moving real solutions forward. The STEM Engine will help pass down the tribal knowledge that the life science and high tech industries have to offer. This resource has the power to empower change in our education system.
To see a concept map of the STEM Engine, please see the attached document that resides in the media section.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Life science is one of the fastest growing sectors in the state's economy. However as today’s scientists grow more sophisticated our school system ironically lags behind. The institute realized that this gap could be narrowed by deploying career technical activities designed to augment formal K-12 education. The STEM Engine concept was created with the input of key industry stakeholders. Early on the BIOCOM Institute identified the technical areas of STEM disciplines that will be limiting in both the short and long term. A strategy was implemented to engage employers to identify priority needs and develop a collaborative approach to accelerate application.
To be an innovator you need to challenge the current paradigm, go to the source of the problem and create a solution that is simple for that audience to adopt. This is a different approach than most science education organizations and schools employ today. Connections with industry are often not made until after the program has been implemented and for this reason they often fail. There is a need for lessons learned from the important roles played by industry in education and development of the scientific and technical workforce. In the STEM areas, all students should have the opportunity to experience hands-on training, as well as interactions with practicing scientists, engineers and other experts. Currently, many of the opportunities for these activities materialize in the form of informal, out-of-school enrichment activities rather than as part of an integrated effort.
What stage is your project in?
Idea phase
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Life science is synonymous with California. By widely accepted convention, California is home to two of the three top life science clusters in the country. Scientists migrated from their non-profit research to private industry to commercialize their work, and California’s place in this evolving industry was secured. Today, four of the top six life science companies in the country, including the two largest, Genentech and Amgen, are located in California. There are more than 2,224 life science companies in the state, with more than 268,000 employees, representing $19.4 billion in wages and salaries, and $114 billion in revenues, according to the California Healthcare Institute.
To keep California’s life science industry on the cutting edge of scientific and technological innovation we need to develop a new pipeline of STEM workers. However with students declining interest in math and science,we need to create solutions that will ignite passion for these fields. The Education Trust-West estimates that one in three students in California drop out of high school. In San Diego, an estimated 40 percent of students drop out. In a report conducted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, students reported the main reasons why they dropped out of school: 47 percent reported classes weren’t interesting. When asked what would have kept them in school: 81 percent called for more “real world” learning opportunities.
Despite a spirit of cooperation among informal science education organizations, there is often wasteful duplication of recruiting industry resources and preparing curriculum for the professional development of teachers. The life science community would like to participate in STEM education outreach efforts however they are often inundated with requests for resources, donations and volunteers from multiple organizations. Ultimately the companies are unsure how their time and money would be best spent. Coordination of such programs would make it easier for these companies to participate in science education efforts. Life science and high tech companies want one location that catalogues all the various opportunities so they can make the best informed choice based on region, grade level, and activity that they would like to support.
Life science trade associations have become vital as a neutral catalyst to develop and articulate the vision of the nation’s future that is founded in STEM superiority. The ability for these organizations to serve as a bridge between learning institutions and life science companies has helped to create programs of national interest and education initiatives that advance scientific literacy. Associations are institutions that industry firms have complete confidence in because they represent the collective voice of a community of companies. BIOCOM, the largest regional life science industry association in the world, is a trusted advisor in Southern California with over 550 member companies. Building on BIOCOM’s long history of serving the regional life science community, the BIOCOM Institute is a charitable non-profit subsidiary created to build pioneering opportunities for students, teachers, and scientists to work with the life science industry.
As an example of industry's support of the BIOCOM Institute, sixty of BIOCOM’s member companies made a pledge to support our Charter of Commitment to:
1. Encourage employees to participate in volunteer science education opportunities
2. Strengthen science curriculum by providing real world examples
3. Host company tours for students and science teachers
4. Communicate career opportunities in science via webcasts, videos or career fairs
5. Donate laboratory equipment, supplies, or office equipment to our schools
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Recently, Kristie Grover, participated in a networking event for over 100 women engineers. As a moderator and panelist, she led a discussion centered on the low numbers of women and girls pursuing careers in science and engineering. Ms. Grover asked the audience what inspired them to become engineers. The answers ranged from having STEM mentors to witnessing the space race. Conversely, some of the women said that educators attempted to quash their technology calling and it was a happy accident they landed in their current career. This gave her the perfect segue to discussing the positive role models in the women’s lives to how it is now their turn to encourage students to pursue STEM careers.
Ms. Grover was also told she would never excel in science and math. Luckily she has her father, Palmer Ford, as an example. Mr. Ford went straight into the Army after high school. He used the GI Bill to get his AA, BA and MBA degrees. After leaving the military, he worked his way up from an intern at Hunt Wesson to a VP position at Pfizer. From there, he became President of a medical device company and he ended his career as a VC for some of the nation’s largest funds.
He is the reason that Kristie has a soft spot for life sciences and feels that industry volunteers can alter the way our youth think about STEM careers. Mr. Ford showed that with the right motivation and tools, anyone can successfully transition into a STEM career. Ms. Grover’s experience at the event confirmed what she already knew, that someone has to spark that motivation at an early age.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Although the STEM Engine is in the idea phase, we have both the established informal education classroom programs and the industry volunteers ready to populate this web resource. All that is missing is the online system to facilitate the matching with a database to track results and a dedicated staff person to ensure that industry and schools needs are being met.
The BIOCOM Institute has a proven track record with successful online technology programs that have been produced with grant funding. For each of these projects, once the vendor launched the site, the BIOCOM Institute was given the ability to update and make changes on our own without occurring any additional costs. Some of these projects date back to 2005 and have been sustained over several years with very low costs. Here is a list of some of our successful online projects:
BIOCOM Online Workforce Center: www.BiocomInstitute.org
BIOCOM Career Center: http://biocom.biospace.com/
BioCollaborative: www.biocollaborative.com
This STEM Engine concept was generated with measurable outcomes. Measurement strategies will involve ongoing monitoring to determine progress of goals by the BIOCOM Institute. An important and distinctive element of this project is its well-developed dissemination process designed to maximize the impact of project outcomes. Success of the program will be determined by assessing the number of individuals recruited from the target population, the number of individuals provided with career technical training, and the number of industry professionals who have participated in a STEM volunteer activity.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
101-1,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
1,001-10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
The BIOCOM Institute will implement and document this innovative program so that it can have the potential to benefit individuals and communities in California. With very little funding, matched by a significant contribution of time and leveraged resources from our business, research and education partners, we feel this project can reach its true potential and scale.
Knowledge gained will be disseminated through conferences, publications, and websites maintained by the project partners. The online format may be easily updated, expanded and exported through out California and ultimately the nation. This new model of collaboration will become a catalyst for life science based workforce and economic development.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
The partners in this program do not foresee any challenges in making the STEM Engine a reality. It is a project that both industry and educators have requested. The BIOCOM Institute is the perfect conduit to create this innovative program as the organization has a governance structure that represents both industry and academia.
Tell us about your partnerships
Since 1995, BIOCOM has served as a statewide broker in connecting communities with business, research and academic communities. As a result, employers trust BIOCOM’s training programs and continue to bring resources, skills and expertise to the table in an effort to create a stronger pipeline of talent.
In an effort to expand upon the workforce and education activities currently undertaken by BIOCOM, the BIOCOM Board of Directors unanimously approved to create a charitable 501c3 corporation called the BIOCOM Institute. BIOCOM, the Institute’s founding parent, provides an industry context that ensures success by grounding Institute programs firmly in marketplace realities. The Institute’s association with BIOCOM makes it uniquely qualified to undertake this project because it ensures that the Institute’s programs will benefit from well articulated guidance.
The BIOCOM Institute’s long-term plan for financial security and community support is to keep creating programs based on industrial needs. We have been able to build ideas into sustainable programs all across the board. We do this quite simply by charging money for our industrial training courses for incumbent workers and taking those funds and reinvesting into our K-12 programs, all of which we offer free to schools. This is a funding model that has quickly helped us scale-up all of our programs.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$10,001‐50,000
Explain your selections
In 2003, BIOCOM received funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, ETA’s President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative and High Growth Emerging Industries Grant. The programs created with this funding have been sustained by the BIOCOM Institute and are currently helping California’s life science workforce system build its capacity in responding to industry needs. The institute has also received funding from BIOCOM Members, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Pfizer Foundation, The San Diego Foundation and several government agencies.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
The BIOCOM Institute has been able to create a concept that can be replicated by life science clusters and partners across the state and nation. The deliberate online infrastructure of the STEM Engine will ensure easy exportation to other regions and low cost to maintain the programs.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
The STEM Engine is a collaborative partnership with established organizations’ education outreach programs which have already demonstrated measurable, positive results as individual programs. By partnering, these organizations bring together unprecedented access to avenues of communication to the K-12 education system throughout Southern California, connections to an extensive network of industry professionals who have the flexibility to volunteer, along with ties to the largest Science Festival in California.
A keystone recommendation by the NSF is to, “Improve the access to and availability of effective K-12 formal an informal education programs and interventions to meet the needs of future STEM innovators.” STEM Engine partners meet this suggestion by delivering innovative programs to students in their classrooms, as well as providing teachers educational resources for them to enhance STEM learning. The STEM Engine will act as a central agency or one-stop-shop to facilitate the education outreach efforts between industry and schools.
The BIOCOM Institute (Industry + Education), BIOCOM (Industry), San Diego Science Alliance (Education), the San Diego County Office of Education (K-12 System), and the San Diego Science Festival (Community) have teamed up to leverage common links to the scientific and education communities. Over the past several years, these organizations have developed programs with a common vision to bring the relevance and face of science to our students and inspire our next generation of science leaders.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
Through a collaborative approach, the STEM Engine will leverage key programmatic strengths related to scientist and education collaborator networks, program logistics, public relations to reach a stronger qualitative and quantitative impact among scientists and schools. In addition, repetitive organizational tasks such as scheduling dates/times, communication amongst program participants, and promotion will be coordinated by working together (ex. funding staff members to share common tasks). The resulting product will simplify mechanisms for scientists to engage in outreach activities and educators to bring science enrichment to their classrooms.
The STEM Engine will act as the bridge between industry and the education world and enable the community to advance its long-term commitment to significantly strengthening elementary and secondary STEM education. The mission of the STEM Engine is to translate real science research effectively into science and engineering education initiatives. This regional network will have a positive impact on creating meaningful science education experiences for academia and make real strides in improving science education. Collaboration will improve our efforts in effectively connecting the worlds of science, engineering, research and education.
The STEM Engine’s online database will collect user data and aggregate outcomes, including participant-level data by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, education and employment history, services provided, and outcomes achieved.
For examples of how we track program success, please see the attached BIOCOM Institute Highlights document that resides in the media section.
Needs
Investment, Human Resources/Talent, Marketing/Media.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
As mentioned earlier, we have both the proven career technical education classroom programs and the industry volunteers ready to populate this web resource. We will need to find a low-cost online system to facilitate the matching and a dedicated staff person manage the project.
Offers
Research/Information, Collaboration/Networking, Innovation/Ideas.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
Programs created by the BIOCOM Institute are becoming models that other associations and agencies may use for benchmarking and planning. The institute is always happy to share our knowledge and resources with other regions to replicate and expand our current initiatives. The BIOCOM Institute programs are a leading example of how sponsored innovation of high growth industries can be replicated across the nation as a significant economic strategy.
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