STEM is all the rage in these parts. An acronym that stands for the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math, there is a strong push to increase the number of college students, particularly women and minorities, pursuing degrees in those fields of study. The Department of Labor also sees a need to fill 1.2 million STEM jobs by the year 2018.
“We don’t want to just increase the number of American students in STEM. We want to make sure everybody is involved,” President Barack Obama said during remarks prior to the fifth annual White House science fair in March. “That means reaching out to boys and girls, men and women of all races and all backgrounds. Science is for all of us. And we want our classrooms and labs and workplaces and media to reflect that.”
ComEd has taken this call to action seriously, and for the past two years has spearheaded a competition known as the Icebox Derby. The Icebox Derby is a competition between six teams of young ladies from diverse cultures throughout the Chicago area who come together and build race cars utilizing old refrigerators and their knowledge of STEM. The four-week competition culminates in a race to decide has built the best Icebox.
Rolling out attended the second annual kick off of the Icebox Derby. It was encouraging to witness the excitement and spirit of competition from the teams involved.
Katherine Bassett, one of the young ladies from Team Fast and Flawless and a senior at Glenbard West, mentioned how excited she was to be able to build her own car and the reason she wanted to participate was because of a friend who competed the year before. Cherish Anderson, a graduate from IIT and an employee of ComEd, is the mentor for Team Flawless and said that the opportunity allows young women to step out of “normal” social roles.
We asked ComEd’s CEO Anne Pramaggiore why it was important for ComEd to create and lead such a dynamic competition, and why the diversity of the young women in the competition is necessary.”We are so excited about the message this sends to girls and other groups underrepresented in this growing area. At ComEd, we are aware of our immense obligation to develop and maintain some of the city’s most critical economic infrastructure — its electric system. Without a state-of-the-art and affordable system, we won’t attract the businesses we want to build here and, as a corollary, we won’t develop and utilize our city’s young talent. The power grid is changing — it is becoming digital and far more complex; it is becoming much more adaptable to consumer customization. To run this system smartly and affordably, we need talent, plain and simple. And we want to chose our talent from the widest range of potential employees — our ideal workforce of the future will be pulled from the broadest most diverse pool — we want the best. We also believe that smart problem solving increases exponentially when employees with different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences sit together at the conference room table. So, we start early to insure that we will have the workforce we need in the future — if we can get these girls excited about technology and engineering at 13 or 14, we have a better chance of seeing their resumes 10 years from now as we are hiring talent to run the 21st century power grid,” Pramaggiore said.
Pramaggiore’s passion is matched by everyone involved and the young ladies are excited to race at the end of the four-week process. They will build relationships, fast cars, and ultimately, careers. For more information on the Icebox Derby competition, visit theiceboxderby.com.
Instagram/Twitter: @precise_chi
Eddy Lamarre aka Precise is a hip-hop artist-writer-actor from Chicago. The Chicago Reader recognized “Ladies Love Mixtapes” his latest release as one of the best projects of 2014. Listen/Buy Ladies Love Mixtapes at: https://precise.bandcamp.com/album/ladies-love-mixtapes-the-ep
