IEEE Summit Yields Better Equipped STEM Educators

The annual IEEE STEM Summit, held this year on 23 and 24 October, brought together preuniversity educators, IEEE volunteers, and STEM enthusiasts to discuss ways to spark children’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.The free virtual summit attracted nearly 1,000 attendees from more than 100 countries. Participants engaged in keynote discussions, networking sessions, and presentations designed to address the most pressing challenges in STEM education. Speakers addressed building a sustainable future, as well as harnessing the power of artificial intelligence in classrooms.Why a STEM summit?The event was organized and hosted by the IEEE Educational Activities preuniversity education coordinating committee, whose mission is to foster outreach to school-age children worldwide by helping educators and IEEE volunteers create engaging activities.The coordinating committee provides resources and services through TryEngineering, an Educational Activities program focused on STEM outreach. The program provides educators with lesson plans, activities, and other resources at no charge for use in their classrooms and in community activities.Young students’ interest in STEM careers can be ignited when they’re introduced to technologies and learn how they operate.“With the continued growth of our TryEngineering programs, the IEEE STEM Summit brought together global experts in the field of STEM outreach,” says Jamie Moesch, IEEE Educational Activities managing director. “This event is a wonderful opportunity for people with a passion for inspiring engineering and technology in the next generation to get together, learn, and collaborate.”Sustainability, space exploration, and AIThe summit opened with a welcome from Mary Ellen Randall, the 2025 IEEE president-elect; Tim Kurzweg, vice president of Educational Activities; and Stamatis Dragoumanos, chair of the preuniversity education coordinating committee. They emphasized the importance of collaboration and innovation in STEM education.Khadijah Thibodeaux and Heidi Gibson from the Smithsonian Science Education Center introduced Smithsonian Science for Global Goals, a repository of hands-on activities and research designed to help students ages 11 to 18 learn about sustainability issues and experiment with solutions in their community.Mylswamy Annadurai, a program director at the Indian Space Research Organization who is known as the “moon man of India” for leading the country’s two lunar missions, shared stories about innovations that have fueled his nation’s space exploration. He urged summit participants to be resilient, think big, and embrace challenges.Stuart Kohlhagen, founder and director of the Science Nomad initiative, spoke from Thailand’s MAKERHerSpace. Kohlhagen champions hands-on science and critical thinking in both formal and informal education contexts. He discussed practical strategies to enhance critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration for students globally.Other sessions addressed interesting topics in STEM education today. Participants explored inclusive strategies to bridge the digital divide, design thinking as a problem-solving tool, and the effective use of artificial intelligence in preuniversity education.There was a hands-on workshop on prompt engineering, which is designing and refining instructions to guide AI models to get more accurate search results.Networking sessions and exhibit booths provided additional opportunities for participants to connect, share ideas, and explore resources. More than 2,500 attendees visited exhibit booths hosted by IEEE technical societies and industry partners.Recordings of summit sessions are available on the IEEE TryEngineering YouTube channel.Educators may access free resources at TryEngineering.org.The IEEE Foundation is TryEngineering’s philanthropic partner. Contribute to future events and expand STEM outreach globally by visiting the TryEngineering Fund donation page.