STEM Council Quarterly
February 28, 2013 | 4:00—6:00 PM
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St.; 78701
MINUTES
4:17 P.M. | WELCOME FROM STEM COUNCIL | LONNY STERN
4:21 P.M. | WELCOME FROM CAPITAL FACTORY | JOSH BAUER



Capital Factory is an education and coworking space for entrepreneurs and start-ups.
On Thursday, March 7, Capital Factory is hosting the fifth annual Startup Crawl from 5:30—9:30
P.M.
Lonny Stern added that the STEM Council is participating in a panel with Pflugerville ISD at 1
p.m. titled “How to Start a Game Company Incubator at Your School.”
4:25 P.M. | INTRODUCTIONS FROM EACH ATTENDEE
4:33 P.M. |STEM COUNCIL OVERVIEW|LONNY STERN





The STEM Council is a part of Skillpoint Alliance, a workforce development agency. It provides
computer literacy training, rapid employment training and professional development services on
the adult side. In April, Skillpoint will launch NEXT, a program for entry-level or mid-level career
professionals who need additional education to move up in their career. Details to come soon.
The youth side focuses on STEM to ensure that everyone who grows up in Central Texas has the
ability to participate in our growing economy, which means STEM careers.
The decision was made to focus on project-based, career driven projects. Today, the Council
promulgates some of the best projects in the region and the new goal is to scale those projects.
The Council focuses on these areas to engage K-16 in STEM:
o Robotics—Hosting Central Texas FIRST Robotics, including FIRST Tech Challenge, FIRST
LEGO League and Jr. FIRST LEGO League; STEM Innovation Camps; serving K—12
o Greentech—Solar Racer curriculum provides energy education with arts and crafts style
building; Velocity programs; launching FutureCity later this year; STEM Innovation
Camps; serving 6-12
o Digital Media—JAMs, HACKs and RALLYs; Velocity programs; Innovation Camps; serving
K—16 with emphasis on 12—16
o Career Exposure—Skillpoint Alliance does not host Discover Engineering, but is very
involved with the initiative. Discover Engineering trains engineers to go into classrooms
and host an activity with students. Contact Lonny to arrange a Discover Engineering
Lunch ‘n Learn at your company!
o College and Career Expo 2013, sponsored by the Austin Chamber and Samsung—3,500
high school juniors and seniors want to learn about the careers and post-secondary
education opportunities in our region and we want to make sure STEM is represented.
Contact Blair Wooldridge|bwooldridge@skillpointalliance.org to sign up for your booth
today.
Velocity Programs—Skillpoint Alliance outsources high school intern hiring and supervision for
local stem companies through the Velocity Prep and Velocity Capstone programs. Velocity Prep
is for rising junior and senior bubble students in low-income communities. Velocity Capstone is
STEM Council Quarterly
February 28, 2013 | 4:00—6:00 PM
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St.; 78701
for high school seniors looking to fill their 4th year science or internship elective credit. Costwise, three Velocity Capstone programs equal one Velocity Prep.
4:55 P.M. | PROGRAM FOCUS: DIGITAL MEDIA|BRYON LLOYD

Bryon Lloyd came to Skillpoint Alliance after 15 years in the gaming industry. He began
developing GameCamps to expose high school students to the game development world, very
similar to the Velocity programs.
 The STEM Digital Media Council is a steering committee to help shape the digital media program
offerings.
 Velocity programs—Bryon coordinates Digital Media Velocity programs, with one currently
being held for Ann Richards students to develop an app for electric cars. The concentration is on
the design and entrepreneurial side, rather than the language and coding side.
 JAMs, HACKs and RALLYs—First JAM was a huge success, as the largest JAM the Global Game
Jam movement had ever seen. Participants form into groups of four and then have roughly 48 to
design, create and test a game or mobile app. Sponsorship opportunities are still available for
the SxSW jam being held at the SxSW Gaming Expo from March 8—10. HACKs are programs to
physically manipulate something in some way to change into a new and creative use. RALLYs are
one-day professional development seminars for those hoping to go into the gaming industry.
 Innovation Camps— 2013 offerings include Scratch (drag and drop language programming,
pieces designed lego-style), Minecraft Edu (3D Sandbox) and Make (3D scanners and printers).
5:16 P.M.|NEW BUSINESS|LONNY STERN

The STEM Council applied for a $2.5 million grant in partnership with E3 Alliance from the
National Science Foundation. Thank you to all of you who assisted in this effort. Expect an
announcement in April. If the STEM Council does receive the grant, $2 million will be used
toward scaling the Velocity programs to 35 projects each year from the 8 to 10 projects the
STEM Council currently hosts, and $500K will be set aside for researching the program data.
 Engineering America—University of Texas female Engineering student wrote a “Marley & Me”style autobiographical novel of her experience in Engineering school. She needs a foreword to
be written by a famous engineer. If you would like to write the foreword, contact Lonny.
 Save the Date for Velocity presentations—Presentations of Velocity interns’ work will be held:
o May 23|Ann Richards School
o May 30|Del Valle High School, hosted by Tokyo Electron
o June 21|Manor High School
5:30 P.M.|PECHA-KUCHAS

Bob Nugen|DeVry University
o DeVry University has a small campus on the north side of town. Eighty-eight percent of
DeVry graduates have jobs in their field within six months of graduation. DeVry
concentrates STEM in their Engineering and Information Sciences program.
o DeVry’s “claim to fame” is their three years to earn a degree for a full-time student. The
university is recognized with numerous accreditations and achievements. All DeVry
instructors must have professional experience before teaching and are held to
professional standards.
STEM Council Quarterly
February 28, 2013 | 4:00—6:00 PM
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St.; 78701
o
DeVry graduates earn 10 percent more than comparable college graduates’ at their jobs.
Focus is on hands-on instruction with career application. 95 percent of Fortune 500
companies have a DeVry alumni as an employee.
o If educators are interested in hearing more about DeVry, DeVry can host about 60
students for site visits, bring representatives into your school or invite students to
“crash a class” and attend an evening class at DeVry.
 Rick McMaster|IBM
o Pathways in Technology, or PTECH, is an early college high school which first opened in
September of 2011 in New York City. President Obama advocated the program in his
February 11 State of the Union address.
o The school is run on an extended-day, extended-year model with a rigorous,
achievement-oriented curriculum. Students graduate with an Associate’s Degree in a
STEM field, qualifying them to be first in line for jobs at IBM.
o PTECH is a model that is designed to be replicated and has already been. A playbook for
the program is available at citizenibm.com. It has been replicated in Chicago with four
schools this past fall, with fifth school established by Microsoft. New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo announced a public-private partnership to establish ten PTECH schools
in the ten economic regions of New York state. Discussions have already begun about
bringing this school to Texas.
 Annette Gregory, Austin Independent School District and Austin Community College
o Annette coordinates Career and Technical Education programs run through a 10-year
partnership between AISD and ACC.
o Fifty-four percent of students are taking at least one CTE course. The program recently
added twenty teachers to better accommodate the demand from students.
o The program is administered through career clusters. The STEM career cluster has close
to the highest number of student enrollment with 1,800 students.
o Courses are held at all 18 middle schools and 14 high schools. Five thousand students
are scheduled to take some type of certification test and are always adding articulation
agreements with local community colleges and universities.
o The program needs more businesses to get involved to add more programs.
5:47 P.M.|ANNOUCEMENTS




Lonny Stern: According to the most recent report from the Ray Marshall Center’s Student
Futures Project, roughly 20 percent of students graduate with the plans to attend a STEMrelated post-secondary education program. LONNY CAN YOU PROVIDE THE ADDITIONAL
STATISTICS THAT YOU MENTIONED? I missed these.
Tricia Berry|University of Texas Women in Engineering & the Texas Girls Collaborative Project:
Explore UT is March 2. The Engineering School will be hosting 720 hours of programming in its
Engineering Expedition Area, with every engineering discipline represented.
Steve Farrer | Door64: Door64 is hosting a startup showcase on March 8. Go to the Door64
SxSW page for a comprehensive list of SxSW events.
Annette Gregory|AISD: AISD is hosting its own robotics competition on May 4. Volunteers and
business mentors are needed.
STEM Council Quarterly
February 28, 2013 | 4:00—6:00 PM
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St.; 78701



Jim Clardy|Austin Mini-Maker Faire: The Austin Mini-Maker Fair will showcase ‘make’ activities
of all types, including a sustainable engineering village and 3D printing village. Go to
austinmakerfaire.com for more information.
Elizabeth Quintanilla|Austin Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission:
Councilmembers are welcome to attend the next Technology Commission meeting to hear the
recipients of the Grants for Technology Opportunities (GTOPs). Grant process for 2014 will start
later this year. Any service providers applying in 2014 will benefit from hearing the projects that
receive funding through GTOPs.
Rick McMaster|IBM: There are still plenty of opportunities for schools and science teacher to
request a visit from an engineer through Central Texas Discover Engineering. In addition, ten
schools are still unmatched with volunteers. Go to centexeweek.org to sign up.