S.T.E.A.M. Collective: LA County

K-12 STEAM education

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Only 20% of college students studying science, technology, engineering, digital arts, or math feel that their K-12 education prepared them for their coursework. According to a study by our partners at Microsoft, 80% of college students studying subjects related to STEAM decided to study STEAM in high school or earlier. While Los Angeles County Office of Education is working to provide assistance to districts and schools in delivering systematic, sustainable, high quality, standards-based Arts & STEAM education for all students, both the County and schools within lack the technology industry and local startup community connections to bring sufficient co-curricular support that can fill the invention education gap for students pursuing careers in STEAM.

S.T.E.A.M. Collective: LA County is a collaboration project with Road to Artdom Foundation designed to bring S.T.E.A.M. education curriculum and industry mentorship to youth in LA County, with a strategic focus on underserved populations in South LA, San Fernando Valley, Central LA, South Bay , and the Westside in 2024. As a former LA2050 Grant Winner, we will continue building a professional development ecosystem that helps youth explore careers in the creative economy. During the 2024-2025 grant period, we will produce collaborative hackathons throughout LA County that provide high school students with mentor-guided blended environments for invention-based learning and exploration of career pathways in the creative economy. This program will allow 1000+ youth across 100 schools in LA County to (1) learn creative technology hard skills and teamwork/presentation soft skills and (2) gain exposure to entrepreneurship, career mentorship, and apprenticeship opportunities from professionals across 150+ companies in S.T.E.A.M. industries. Mentor-led Office hours, workshops, product sprints, and demo days are facilitated in-person and virtually. We will organize up to ten 100-person hackathons across venues in LA County. Demo sessions at the hackathons provide an opportunity for youth to pitch their portfolios to hiring managers, recruiters, and funders from creative industries. Exposure to 100 unique schools will bring invention education to the attention of 10,000+ students.

In 2023, there were 1,313,935 students enrolled in schools within Los Angeles County. If our work is successful, every student will learn what it means to be an inventor. Protecting inventions is a right in the United States and invention assignment agreement are in every employment contract. It is about time every student enrolled in K-12 schools within LA County understood what inventions are and their value in the fight against income inequality. STEAM Collective: LA County will create the positioning and foundational structure for our 150+ companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, and Adobe to invest in LA County's developing workforce and creative economy.

We measure success by the (1) number of youth participants in our hackathon events, (2) number of student projects created during the hackathon events, (3) total number of student portfolios created, (4) number of internships secured, (5) number of employers participating in mentor office hours, (6) net promoter score of our S.T.E.A.M. education programs, (7) number of new social impact organization created by students, and (8) number of job secured by our students. We use a survey tools and longevity studies that are housed in our student impact dashboard. If we are successful, we will see an increase in S.T.E.A.M. Collective event participation among youth and a growing number of creative jobs and internships secured by students.

Road to Artdom Foundation represents the "A" in S.T.E.A.M. ever since we started collaborating in 2014. They will be providing the following to the S.T.E.A.M. Collective: LA County program throughout the grant period: full repository of workshops related to art including fine art, product design, VR/AR design, game design, and mechanical engineering since 2014. directory of art studios throughout Los Angeles County that students can use to produce work after-school or via field trips, including the Compton Innovation Center launched in 2019. staff and volunteers who can assist with program management, workshop development, instruction, and fiscal sponsorship support for student inventions
network of mentors and hiring partners who can attend student demo days.