What Role Do Corporations Play in Supporting STEM Education?
Last week, as part of the Imagine Cup award ceremony, Hal
Plotkin, the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under
Secretary of Education, praised Microsoft for its commitment to
STEM education with its hosting of the global student technology
competition. Plotkin encouraged other companies to step up and
invest in these sorts of endeavors. As the projects submitted to
the Imagine Cup must tackle the UN’s Millennium Goals – poverty,
hunger, disease, infant mortality, environmental destruction,
and so on – it’s not just good for the U.S. education system,
it’s good for the world. Microsoft is not the only corporation
involved in promoting STEM education. Earlier this year,
MindShift profiled the Change the Equation non-profit, through
which companies like ExxonMobil, Dell and Lockheed Martin have
supported science and technology education. Intel says it’s
spent over $1 billion on education projects. And just last week,
Google announced the winne