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STEM-related career fields represent some of the fastest growing segments of industry, and provide high economic earning potential. However, African-American and Latinx students continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields due to a lack of access to real-world, career-based STEM education opportunities.
As recently as 2018, a quarter of U.S. high schools with the highest percentage of Black and Latinx students did not offer basic STEM courses such as Algebra II and Chemistry. Additionally, more than half of U.S. school districts, and more than 90 percent of districts primarily serving Black and Latinx students, reported difficulties recruiting and retaining certified, knowledgeable STEM teachers.
Research shows that students who engage in informal, authentic STEM learning experiences based around ideas of diversity and inclusion develop:
- an improved sense of STEM identity,
- an increased interest in STEM, and
- a higher likelihood of pursuing a STEM career
Design the Future helps to increase the number of low-income Students of Color who gain in-demand STEM skills and exposure to real-world career experiences in engineering and technology,
while also positively impacting the lives of individuals with disabilities.
In this 2-week, online Design the Future: Digital program students collaborate with a diverse team of peers, a university-level design coach, and a project partner who lives with a disability, to design and launch a real app that addresses a disability-related challenge for their Project Partner. In 2021, Design the Future: Digital enrolled 104 students, who created 21 different apps to solve challenges for our Project Partners.
Design the Future Digital Teaches:
Design Thinking Mindsets
A human-centered design approach to problem solving, Design Thinking empowers students with the skills and mindsets to create solutions to challenges of any scale. Through Design Thinking students learn to recognize and set aside their own assumptions about an issue, understand and empathize with the people closest to the issue, correctly define the challenge to be solved, and create effective, tested solutions through multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Career-Ready STEM Skills
Students engage in hands-on training in high-value STEM skills such as: user research, wireframing, prototyping, testing, UX/UI design and app development.
Real-world Product Design Experience
Students experience a real-world, design career environment working with a collaborative, remote design team to create and design a real product, for a real client within a real deadline (just 2 weeks!).
Disability Awareness
Students gain perspective on life and design through the lens of disability as they design a product that solves a specific challenge for their “client” - a Project Partner living with disability.
"This is an invaluable experience for all involved. Teaching design thinking to high school students while they learn empathy for individuals with disabilities is an invaluable experience that they will use throughout their lives. As a [project] partner, it is exciting to see students learn and apply it to a real world experience."
Abby Tamara, Project Partner
Our Outcomes
Through immersive learning experiences led by industry experts in Design Thinking, product and tech design, UX/UI design and Designing for Disability, Design the Future has helped students from all over the world realize their own potential for creating meaningful, lasting change through Design Thinking.
Since 2015 students in our in-person and online programs have created more than 100 different products to solve unique challenges for their project partners with disabilities. Following the program, our alums are able to use the skills they’ve learned through Design the Future to create real impact in their own lives and communities outside of the program.
What our Scholarship Students are Saying:
Davae Lynch, Worcester, MA 2021 Scholarship Recipient In my Design the Future experience, I had amazing teammates, and the coaches and facilitators worked really hard to answer our questions. I liked the panels that we had because they really helped me to gain more insight and advice on real-world problems. Through Design the Future, I learned a lot about myself specifically how much I can push myself outside of my comfort zone.
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Darvensky Daniel, Jamaica Plain, MA 2021 Scholarship Recipient My Design the Future experience was something that unexpectedly changed my perception of reality. It really made me see just how important it is to be inclusive of who might try your app or website and really think about solutions to any problems that come up. |
Analisa Delgado, Mountain View, CA 2021 Scholarship Recipient Design the Future was such an eye-opening experience that really changed some of my values and ideas, one that I will definitely take with me throughout my life. I learned so much about what it means to empathize and how to make a change within my community with the biggest impact. I loved learning life skills that you could apply everywhere, like problem solving, using empathy, listening, collaborating, etc., and I really like that we get to use something that we are passionate about or interested in (STEM) to help make a change in someone's life. |
Ahmed Abouelnaga, Brooklyn, NY 2021 Scholarship Recipient
Design the Future helped me learn to work with others and to be able to have a better design thinking process. It was amazing, overwhelming, and satisfying. I have learned so much! |
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