Cultivating STEMM Innovation: Highlights from the 2024 International Expert Meeting

Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing host­ed an Inter­na­tion­al Expert Meet­ing from 28–31 May 2024 (IEM 2024) on “The Trans­for­ma­tive Pow­er of Men­tor­ing for Reach­ing Excel­lence in STEMM” in Nurem­berg, Ger­many. Prof. Dr. Hei­drun Stoeger, co-direc­tor of the pro­gram, and Dr. Mari­am AlGhawi, direc­tor of the Cen­tre for Gift­ed­ness and Inno­va­tion at the Ham­dan bin Rashid Al Mak­toum Foun­da­tion for Med­ical and Edu­ca­tion­al Sci­ences, wel­comed a diverse group of dis­tin­guished experts. The event fea­tured a vari­ety of com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives on men­tor­ing across the sci­ences, with each expert pre­sent­ing their research and engag­ing in vibrant discussions.

The event kicked off with Prof. Dr. Stoeger’s pre­sen­ta­tion on effec­tive men­tor­ing in STEMM for var­i­ous groups. Prof. Dr. Stoeger’s remarks includ­ed an overview of Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing, with infor­ma­tion about the program’s struc­ture, devel­op­ment, and cur­rent sta­tus. Fol­low­ing her intro­duc­tion, the stage was giv­en to the invit­ed experts.

First, Angela Tabiri, PhD, a research asso­ciate and aca­d­e­m­ic man­ag­er for the Girls in Math­e­mat­i­cal Sci­ences Pro­gram (GMSP) at the African Insti­tute for Math­e­mat­i­cal Sci­ences (AIMS) in Ghana, pre­sent­ed on “Nur­tur­ing the Tal­ents of Girls in Ghana in the Math­e­mat­i­cal Sci­ences.” Dr. Tabiri high­light­ed the impor­tance of fos­ter­ing female par­tic­i­pa­tion in STEM fields, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mathematics.

Her pre­sen­ta­tion offered valu­able insights into inspir­ing girls in Ghana to pur­sue careers in the math­e­mat­i­cal sci­ences. Dr. Tabiri’s suc­cess at pro­mot­ing diver­si­ty and empow­er­ing young women in math­e­mat­ics has earned her inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, includ­ing selec­tion for the 2024 Female Sci­ence Tal­ents Pro­gram by the Falling Walls Foundation.

Next, Richard Briscoe, CEO of PASCO Sci­en­tif­ic, a long-term part­ner of Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing, pre­sent­ed on “PASCO Sci­en­tif­ic: 60 Years of Inno­va­tion Improv­ing STEM Edu­ca­tion.” By design­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing inno­v­a­tive hands-on sci­ence lab equip­ment and teacher resources, PASCO Sci­en­tif­ic has been improv­ing out­comes in STEM edu­ca­tion at pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary, and uni­ver­si­ty lev­els for decades.

Mr. Briscoe shared what he has learned from hav­ing his fin­ger on the pulse of the STEM-edu­ca­tion mar­ket for more than 30 years. He empha­sized the impor­tance of offer­ing no-has­sle teacher train­ing along­side the inno­v­a­tive tools teach­ers need to sup­port STEMM edu­ca­tion effectively.

Sal­ly Frank, man­ag­er of phil­an­thropic pro­grams at Agi­lent Tech­nolo­gies, then pre­sent­ed on “How Life Sci­ences, Tech, and Oth­er Cor­po­ra­tions With Employ­ees in STEM Fields Can Build a Sus­tain­able, Glob­al Net­work of Vir­tu­al STEM Men­tors.” One of the goals of the Agi­lent Foun­da­tion, a phil­an­thropic orga­ni­za­tion asso­ci­at­ed with Agi­lent Tech­nolo­gies, is to pro­mote STEM sub­jects among under­rep­re­sent­ed groups. Agi­lent has suc­cess­ful­ly pro­mot­ed the men­tor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty among its employ­ees world­wide, including

Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing since 2023. Ms. Frank’s pre­sen­ta­tion show­cased how a glob­al cor­po­ra­tion can encour­age its employ­ees to make a dif­fer­ence for the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers in STEM.

Fran­cis Bat­ac, from the GitHub Edu­ca­tion, then pre­sent­ed on “Build­ing Psy­cho­log­i­cal Safe­ty in Men­tor­ing Rela­tion­ships.” In his inter­ac­tive pre­sen­ta­tion, Mr. Bat­ac showed how a psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly safe envi­ron­ment plays a cru­cial role in effec­tive men­tor­ing rela­tion­ships. Mr. Batac’s pre­sen­ta­tion also high­light­ed the impor­tance of clear­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing the fun­da­men­tal con­cepts of men­tor­ing to all STEMM experts who under­take such a task.

Prof. Dr. Robert Ros­ner, a renowned physi­cist from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, then pre­sent­ed on “Build­ing a World-Class Cross-Dis­ci­pli­nary Aca­d­e­m­ic Team for Fore­front Com­put­ing.” Prof. Dr. Ros­ner dis­cussed the chal­lenges and suc­cess­es of cre­at­ing a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary com­pu­ta­tion­al physics and astro­physics group. He high­light­ed the inte­gra­tion of diverse experts as a coher­ent group that collaborated

effec­tive­ly, ulti­mate­ly cre­at­ing what even­tu­al­ly became known as the Flash Code—a com­pu­ta­tion­al tool with a cur­rent user base of 1,000s, used in var­i­ous fields rang­ing from iner­tial fusion to astrophysics.

Lead­ing tal­ent-devel­op­ment expert Dr. Rena Sub­ot­nik con­clud­ed the IEM 2024 with her talk on “Infus­ing Insid­er Knowl­edge Into a Tra­jec­to­ry of Men­tor­ing for Tal­ent Devel­op­ment.” Dr. Sub­ot­nik explained the dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of insid­er knowl­edge and its impact on men­tor­ing and teach­ing. Dr. Sub­ot­nik also dis­cussed the impor­tance of men­tor­ing in devel­op­ing skills and

its influ­ence on artis­tic per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. She addressed why gift­ed and tal­ent­ed indi­vid­u­als often miss out on oppor­tu­ni­ties and high­light­ed the cru­cial role men­tors play in this process.

The ses­sions pro­vid­ed valu­able insights for the future for Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing, devel­op­ing tal­ent devel­op­ment strate­gies, and offer­ing opti­mal sup­port for out­stand­ing youth and young adults in STEMM fields. Dis­cus­sions extend­ed beyond the offi­cial pro­gram into social events, where par­tic­i­pants con­tin­ued to exchange ideas, forg­ing stronger con­nec­tions and col­lab­o­ra­tive relationships.

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