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UnGrounded: British Airways Attempts to Bottle Some Startup Spirit
theodp writes "Bill Gates already called dibbs on polio, so British Airways had to settle for tackling the 'global misalignment of talent' problem, putting '100 of the most forward-thinking founders, CEOs, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley game-changers' on a flight from San Francisco to London to 'innovate and collaborate to find an effective solution to this growing global challenge.' UnGroundedThinking.com showcases the winning concepts, which include Advisher (an online community to help foster women in STEM), INIT ('nutritional labels' to disclose products' 'STEM ingredients'), DGTL (rewards young women with fashionable clothes for completing coding challenges), Beacons in a Backpack (solar powered backpacks pre-loaded with videos, multimedia content, and game-powered educational tools that also serve as mobile hotspots for rural/remote areas), Tech21 (STEM education program aimed at 21-years-and-older post-college grads in the workforce), Certify.me (allows STEM talent from across the globe to audition for potential employers via standardized-quality assessments), and STEAM Truck (a mobile dance lab where STEM art installations teach kids that science is fun and valuable). 'This has the feel of Southby [SXSW],' gushed a Google Ventures general partner. "It's a serendipitous occasion. It's about time we presented engineers to kids as role models — not just firefighters, cops, doctors, detectives. Who knows? Maybe The Internship changes that.'"
It appears that they're all trying to find technical or social engineering methods to get females interested in STEM subject. My daughter is very good at math and science and would like to explore the field more. But with college a couple of years away, the main issue is money. How are we going to pay for her to go to a good school where she can explore STEM subjects more?
She thinks that she wants to go to the U.S. to study, but as soon as recent help for student aid was announced, the prices at most colleges went up to match it, especially for out-of-state / out-of-country students. The in-state tuition was a bit pricy for a good STEM university, even that is crazy now.
There's a great flight for them.
Seriously, those ideas are about what I'd expect from people breathing low-pressure oxygen on a long flight.
These are the WINNING concepts, folks:
Advisher (an online community to help foster women in STEM) - How about we just give them a decent education, and discourage the modern-media role-modeling of women as only whores and skanks?
INIT ('nutritional labels' to disclose products' 'STEM ingredients') - what? /facepalm.
DGTL (rewards young women with fashionable clothes for completing coding challenges) - sigh. So much for abandoning stereotypes.
Beacons in a Backpack (solar powered backpacks pre-loaded with videos, multimedia content, and game-powered educational tools that also serve as mobile hotspots for rural/remote areas) - right, because I can't think of anything more common than kids gathering in a cow pasture to view some "multimedia content" (the 1980s called, they'd like their vocabulary back).
Tech21 (STEM education program aimed at 21-years-and-older post-college grads in the workforce) - if they're already 21+ and not already interested in STEM, they're lost to you.
Certify.me (allows STEM talent from across the globe to audition for potential employers via standardized-quality assessments): that's actually probably useful benchmarking to make it easier to evaluate and hire STEM students. Sort of a STEM-focused SAT/ACT. Good idea.
STEAM Truck (a mobile dance lab where STEM art installations teach kids that science is fun and valuable): Jesus Christ, this is why we don't let DANCE instructors in on STEM discussions. A mobile DANCE lab to teach science is fun? /facepalm. Didn't Disney's Ludwig von Drake do that better 40 years ago?
'This has the feel of Southby [SXSW],' gushed a Google Ventures general partner. - And I have no doubt that the person genuinely "gushed", parenthetically mentioned the hipster abbreviation, and refers to themselves as a "game changer".
Honestly, if this superficial crap is the best that these "game changers" can come up with to improve/motivate kids to go into STEM, we're fucked.
(FWIW here's my example of the impact of the STEM educational initiative in my local high school:
Suburban MN school. Prides itself for participation in STEM initiative, such that our Senator even visited last spring. Shortly after, my 10th-grade daughter was picking classes for her Junior year. She's been in their accelerated math program since 4th grade, and loves it. However she was told "sorry, no calculus for you as a junior. Just skip math your junior year and take it as a senior." Seriously. After some investigation, we discovered that NO juniors were being allowed to take calc (which is a year ahead of normal) as they only planned for 2 sections of calculus...about 50-60 kids. This is in a school where each grade is 300 kids.
After a pointed discussion with the superintendant, they 'managed' to find a spot for her, but I'm sure none of the students who DIDN'T complain/fight got in, as she said there's only about 4 juniors in calculus this year.
i.e. "STEM initiative!" = really nothing.)
-Styopa