TOPICS & CATEGORIES
SoarTech team members in the Orlando office enjoyed their second year in a row supporting {CodeOrlando}, a program of the Gordon Family Giving Foundation, started by NBA player Aaron Gordon and his mother, Shelly Davis Gordon, who is co-founder and serves as the CEO. The foundation provides community services in underserved areas and STEM education to underrepresented youth.
One of those programs, {CodeYourCity}, is a community-based intensive STEM-based journey of various branches of cutting-edge technology, and one that SoarTech wanted to support when they learned about it through one of their team members last year.
“I searched for volunteer opportunities that would fit the goals of SoarTech’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion initiatives,” said Victor Hung, research scientist. “This led to our eventual involvement with helping {CodeOrlando} realize its vision of STEM outreach and accessibility. We are very grateful to Shelly and her team for this chance to serve as enablers of change in our local community.”
Shelly Gordon sent a note to SoarTech thanking the team on behalf of {CodeOrlando}. “You guys really nailed it and the kids were so excited about what they saw and learned,” she said. “I talked to several of them afterward and they did indeed tell me that they have decided to become engineers and were asking about dual enrollment and how old they needed to be to intern with you!”
She continued, “You represent all that the program is meant to achieve. The outreach, the excitement and “ah-ha” moments just reinforce that and when kids discover how accessible technology can be, they want to pursue more.”
Approximately 20 seventh and eighth graders were in the group, and while at SoarTech they learned about Glidin’ 2, an entertainment variant of a parachute-descent training system SBIR effort funded by the U.S. Navy as a replacement training system for Parachute Descent Procedures (PDP). They also learned about and got a sneak peek into virtual reality.
“It’s such an absolute pleasure watching students discover a love for science and technology,” said Denise Nicholson, SoarTech’s chief operating officer. “We know there is a need to develop the future workforce and this program is a wonderful way to introduce young minds to STEM and help them see the many ways it can be applied in the real world. We hope to continue working together with {CodeOrlando} in the future.”
People who read this article also found these articles interesting :
