16 Powerful Pledges to Educate Our Daughters in STEM – Black Enterprise

Education

16 Powerful Pledges to Educate Our Daughters in STEM

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By: Ivan K. Hopkins and Derek T. Dingle At this year's Women of Power Summit, BLACK ENTERPRISE produced with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a special symposium on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math): “Educating Our Daughters: Preparing Female Students to Become 21st Century Leaders.” Immediately following that session, BE and the Gates Foundation convened a Thought Leaders Dinner in which attendees held further discussions on the topic as well as agreed to make year-long commitments to develop initiatives to feed the STEM pipeline. Here are the action items that evolved from that meeting of the minds.

Pat Hughes, Spelman College President Beverly Tatum (middle) and Socially Ahead Founder S. Lynn Cooper (right) were among dinner guests who made such commitments.

One focused on each member "adopting" a student to pay for resources related to STEM coursework, including books, lab costs and tutoring services. Other efforts called for raising funds through outreach to foundations and business networks as well as building an online crowdfunding platform similar to Kickstarter.

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