STEAM Sports Foundation to Concentrate on Scholarships & Summits
As workforce development becomes ever more the mantra for Corporate America, the search for talent with solid STEAM backgrounds becomes more and more vital. While the traditional methods of sports marketing, communications and broadcast journalism still have their place in sports and entertainment, more and more companies, teams and sports organizations are searching for those with degrees in engineering, computer science, neuroscience, gaming and others.
Through scholarships and summits, the foundation is dedicated toward showing tomorrow’s workforce career opportunities that are available via science, technology, engineering, arts and math via employers seeking innovative backgrounds.
One key scholarship emphasis is on the under-served demographics of minorities, women and the economically-challenged, particularly in the motorsports and automotive industry.
For more information about contributions to summits or scholarships, contact STEAM Sports Foundation Executive Director Bob Dickinson at bob@steamsportsfoundation.org.
STEAM Sports Foundation seeks funding to award scholarships to American Youth for programs that introduce them to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math through the lens of Sports.
When STEAM Sports Foundation was created in 2016, veteran sports and television executive Bob Dickinson knew he wanted to help guide STEM/STEAM students to innovative careers in sports and entertainment.
Research showed that by the year 2025 more than 80 percent of jobs would require some sort of STEM or STEAM background. This included sports and entertainment.
Those efforts took root modeled through the STEAM Sports Summit held in conjunction with San Jose State and a three-year program with Honda’s IndyCar program in concert with leading automotive engineering universities.
As 2019 rolled to an end, he asked “What next?”.
In all candor, he was not expecting the “next.” The pandemic threw the foundation’s progress and development a curve. It pivoted. And it persevered. Its focus became scholarships, even though it realized that in a challenging fund-raising environment it would likely have to selffund the first year if it was to launch a scholarship program for a very specific group of students.
Women. Women of Color. Women engineers or technicians. Women looking to EVs and AVs (electric vehicles; autonomous vehicles) as potential automotive careers. Women of Color who might even want to become engineers in the fast-paced world of motorsports.
His board thought he was a bit crazy at first. “You won’t get any applicants,” he was warned. “But we did,” smiled Dickinson. “We succeeded. The diverse field of about 20 applicants the inaugural year was narrowed to four worthy young women. A Black. An Asian. A Native American. A Hispanic. We couldn’t have drawn it up any better.”
This could work! Kettering University’s Kimberly Betty from Jamaica was the ultimate recipient. With the foundation’s help, she went on to intern at the General Motors Research and Technical Center in Concord, NC, just outside Charlotte in close proximity to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
In our effort to support racial diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Dickinson, “we at the STEAM Sports Foundation believe very strongly in unique career opportunities for those who previously were not encouraged to explore these innovative fields nor believed those opportunities existed for them. We very much want to be leading agents and advocates for change.
The following year, Michael Jordan’s NASCAR race team, 23II, contributed to fund multiple scholarships. 23II’s President Steve Lauletta recognized that what STEAM Sports Foundation was doing to bring minorities into motorsports was much along the lines of its commitment, headed by driver Bubba Wallace, to do much the same. Wayne State’s Ashley Jones and Universal Technical Institute’s Jinelee Galindez received grants
