This week is National Engineers Week. At Comcast, it’s a time for us to celebrate what engineers do, to help create awareness about the growing need for engineering innovation and to help bring engineering to life for kids, educators and parents. 

This week, my engineering colleagues and I had the opportunity to host a group of 20 students from Stemnasium Learning Academy at the Comcast Center.  STEMNASIUM LEARNING Academy is an amazing program that offers students in the Philadelphia area greater exposure of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines. These dedicated STEM scholars apply themselves every Saturday in order to realize their goals of becoming scientists, engineers, technologists and/or mathematicians.

During their visit, the students were able to meet with Comcast engineers and software developers and ask them questions about the work they do.  The students also gave us a sneak peek at a mobile app developed by six of their STEMNASIUM LEARNING Academy classmates who range in age from 2nd to 6th grade. 

That’s right.  These children – all of them under 13 years old – have created an application that will be available in the Apple and Android stores in the coming weeks.  Talk about impressive.  When I was their age, I was focused on being a kid and doing regular kid things, and these students are developing code that will have value to a global market.

And this is exactly one of the reasons we celebrate National Engineers Week. 

Over the next five years, STEM jobs are expected to grow twice as fast as jobs in other areas.  However, here in the United States, we’re seeing far too few college and university students graduating with STEM degrees to keep up with that demand.

That’s why organizations like STEMNASIUM LEARNING Academy are so important.  And at Comcast, we recognize and share their commitment to develop and nurture interest in STEM.