The unmet demand for technical talent and the lack of diversity & inclusion in STEM are two of the most pressing issues facing the United States today.
STEM education was highlighted in the Pentagon’s congressionally-mandated annual report titled "US Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Industrial Capabilities Report January 2021". There are innumerable takeaways from the report but a consistent and glaring deficiency throughout reveals an erosion and degradation of the U.S. STEM education system and a severe shortage of technical talent in the U.S. workplace. The broad conclusion is that the United States risks losing its competitive advantage if it continues with its business-as-usual approach.
The DIB report reveals the United States is graduating fewer students with STEM degrees as a percentage of population compared to China, and the trend continues to worsen. The population of China is four times that of the United States but is producing eight times the number of STEM graduates while Russia has almost four times the number of engineers. The United States no longer has the most STEM graduates worldwide and is being rapidly outpaced by China.
In U.S. public education at the K-12 level, just 31 percent of Americans assessed in primary and secondary schools were performing at above average in STEM programs.
The issues in the U.S. also extends to the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in STEM. With respect to DEI in the tech workforce, Hispanics were 15% of the population and African-Americans were 13%, but their representation in the workforces of major tech companies in technical positions typically runs less than 5% and 3%, respectively.
Women, providing approximately 50% of the general population in the U.S., typically comprise less than 20% of the technology and leadership positions in the major technology companies.
As shown above, these issues are crippling the U.S., exacerbated further by the fact that the world continues to become more digitally composed and reliant on technology. Enter Technology for {You}th, where we have set out on a mission to not only improve STEM education, but also level the playing field in STEM careers. We affectionately call our mission: Technology for All {You}th. Our mission drivers are comprised of the following:
To help meet the ongoing demand for technical talent in the U.S., we focus on improving STEM education by offering parents personalized K-12 Coding & STEM enrichment classes for their kids — taught via an expertly curated curriculum, and designed to improve their child's problem solving, critical thinking, logical reasoning, technology skill set, creativity, and digital mindset.
To help meet the ongoing demand for technical talent in the U.S., we focus on improving Diversity and Inclusion STEM careers by offering underrepresented students in-office shadowing and first-hand exposure to tech-based fundamentals and careers by partnering with tech-related companies, with the goal of creating a spark for students to pursue tech as a career.
We believe the mission - Technology for All {You}th - has the power to drastically improve the STEM landscape in the United States.
We are proud to meet the U.S.’s STEM needs and challenges head on, and look forward to continuing to work with individuals, organizations, and government to make positive changes that drive the mission onward and forward.