The Digital STEM

A 16-year-old began The Digital STEM in 2009 while at North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics as a mentoring/tutoring program for elementary/middle school students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Durham. It provides students there with resources they normally would not have and creates a path toward high school graduation and college matriculation. She expanded The Digital STEM while at Columbia University in New York City, with fellow engineering/applied science classmates, to empower underprivileged young women ages 10-14 who, otherwise, may not have the opportunity of exposure and support in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The Digital STEM will accomplish its goals by teaching girls how to refurbish used computers, develop a basic website, utilize academic software, and become leaders in their own schools and communities. Each girl that is affected by The Digital STEM can also affect her neighborhood and our nation by closing the digital and knowledge divide, increasing diversity in the technical workforce, and creating a steady supply of recycled computers that are reused in low-income households as opposed to the millions sent to landfills.