STEM-Trek’s Infinity Loop:
Support + Understanding = Understanding + Support
STEM-Trek Nonprofit is a 501.c.3 public charity (EIN: 37-1693059) that supports scholarly travel, mentoring and advanced skills training for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) scholars from demographics that are underrepresented in their use of advanced cyberinfrastructure.
Beneficiaries are encouraged to pay-it-forward by mentoring others, or by supporting STEM-Trek in some meaningful way. The infinity symbol represents the symbiotic relationship between those at opposite ends of the technology skill spectrum – specifically STEM scholars and job-seekers who lack technical skills. With little or no understanding of technology, low-tech job-seekers may not understand how STEM research benefits their lives. When this sentiment is prevalent among members of important advocacy groups that are experiencing high rates of unemployment (including veterans, the aging workforce, and manufacturing workers who have been displaced by automation), it has a negative impact on legislative support for STEM funding. And, if the research community doesn’t understand the challenges faced by these important groups, they won’t fully consider their needs when making advances in medicine, energy, socioeconomic development, infrastructure, technology, trade, tourism, agriculture, and governance.