01In short
STEM For Others brings free, hands-on engineering programs to students who might not otherwise get them. What started as a small idea grew into more than 130 in-person programs across four continents.
02What I did
- Recruited and managed more than 800 volunteers.
- Reached more than 11,500 students.
- Raised $9K to provide free engineering programs to middle schoolers.
- Established 130+ in-person after-school programs across 4 continents, for elementary through high school students.
03How it started
We started STEM For Others in July 2023 around a simple idea: getting to do hands-on engineering shouldn't depend on whether a student's school can afford it. The programs were free from day one, and the $9K we raised went toward running engineering programs for middle schoolers at no cost to them.
We were students ourselves when we started, and that shaped everything. The programs were designed to be run by volunteers not much older than the kids they taught, which made them cheap to run, easy to start in a new place, and more relatable for the students in the room.
04Scaling to four continents
We grew through volunteers. We recruited and managed more than 800 of them, and they brought programs to their own schools and communities. That's how we reached 130+ after-school programs on four continents and more than 11,500 students.
We also built STEMplore, an online platform with 35+ courses, so that learning didn't have to stop when an in-person session ended.
05What a program looks like
Programs run in person, after school, and are free for students from elementary through high school. They're hands-on: students learn engineering by building and testing things, not by listening to a lecture.
The goal of every session was for students to leave having built something that worked, or having figured out why it didn't. That moment of getting something to work is what turns a one-off class into a student who keeps coming back, and it's what a textbook can't give them.