With new innovations emerging daily, technology seems to be evolving at the speed of light, and increasingly jobs require that we keep up with those changes. Research already shows that 80 percent of future jobs will require technology skills and STEM literacy.

This is why STEM education has never been more important than it is today. As teachers, we want to do our best to prepare our students for their future. But how can we do this without a solid idea of what’s to come?

This problem is even more troublesome when we consider the massive disparity of opportunity between areas of privilege and low income communities, especially those populated by children of color. When it comes to education and a future in tech, many of these children are being left behind.

What can we do to address this problem? That’s where STEMscopes steps in to help. We proudly partnered with the TD Jakes Foundation to host STEAM Academy 2020, a one-of-a-kind online summer class for students aged 5-16.

Welcome to STEAM Academy

While the focus of STEAM Academy is on low-income students in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it also reaches children across the globe. The program boasts over 5,000 enrolled students representing 23 different countries around the world. 

In addition to its global reach, the online academy draws heavily from low-income areas, with 75 percent of enrolled students identifying as black or African American. Through this program, we hope to provide students in underserved communities the opportunity to learn valuable tech skills, such as coding, that will help them grow and prepare for future STEM careers.

Entrepreneur TD Jakes, the chairman of the TD Jakes Foundation, is proud of the program’s outreach, as it fulfills his goal of reaching underprivileged students. “We want to propel students of color to dream bigger and reach higher,” says Jakes. “We believe that by introducing them to the opportunities available in STEAM careers, we are inspiring the future engineers, designers, and app developers of the world and empowering the next generation of achievers. The opportunity gap is real, but with your help we can build a bridge that connects our young people to a brighter future.”

If you’d like to learn more about STEAM Academy, please visit the TD Jakes Foundation website. For more information about STEMscopes, please visit https://www.stemscopes.com/coding/.