Strategic Relationships
For years, SAIC employees have donated their time and talents helping to inspire, engage, and educate elementary school, middle school and high school students. SAIC's nationwide K-12 STEM Program is designed to leverage this employee involvement to help inspire, engage, and educate students in K-12 STEM education.
Goals and Vision
The primary goals of SAIC's K-12 STEM program are to:
- Reinforce community outreach
- Help build the future workforce
- Develop SAIC's current workforce
SAIC's STEM program provides employees with meaningful opportunities to volunteer in their communities. These employee-student interactions are intended to have an exponential effect, as employees inspire students, students spread their enthusiasm to other students, and in turn, new employees are motivated to join in. Hence, SAIC's vision of "exponential inspiration."
SAIC's focus on employee engagement is backed up by funding for selected STEM-related organizations. In honor of the launch of its K-12 STEM program, SAIC initiated two strategic relationships with FIRST® and Project Lead the Way®.
Strategic Relationships
SAIC has selected two organizations with which to build long-term, strategic relationships: FIRST® and Project Lead the Way®. These organizations are national in scope, working in and with schools across the country. They have demonstrated results with students, and together, they cover both extracurricular and in-classroom aspects of STEM. At the initiation of these relationships in January 2010, SAIC donated a total of $1 million.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology)
FIRST is a multinational non-profit organization that designs accessible, innovative, extracurricular programs that motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills. It was founded in 1989 and is based on Manchester, N.H.
SAIC provides employee coaches and funding to support FIRST teams around the country and across FIRST programs: FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST LEGO® League. In addition, SAIC is a major sponsor of FIRST events, including regional competitions around the country where we have significant presence and the international FIRST Championship in Atlanta.
Project Lead The Way (PLTW®)
Project Lead The Way is a national not-for-profit educational program that helps give middle school and high school students the rigorous ground-level education they need to develop strong backgrounds in science and engineering. PLTW was launched in 1996 and is headquartered in Clifton Park, N.Y.
SAIC employees work directly with PLTW schools to bring real-world engineering experience into the classroom. SAIC is also sponsoring schools near company offices to adopt the PLTW curriculum and is supporting PLTW teachers who do double-duty as "STEM coaches" outside the classroom.
Other Support
In addition to these strategic relationships, SAIC supports other organizations addressing STEM in the areas where SAIC employees live and work. Opportunities for SAIC employees to volunteer are of particular interest. Requests for donations to 501(c)3 organizations are considered by a broad-based employee council and evaluated based on the scope of the volunteer opportunities for SAIC employees and the estimated impact of volunteer support.
FIRST is a registered trademark of U.S. FIRST in the U.S. and/or other countries.
LEGO is a registered trademark of The LEGO Group (LEGO Juris A/S) in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Project Lead The Way and PLTW are registered trademarks of Project Lead The Way, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.