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Business
STEMBoard Seeks to Increase Minority Imprint on Technology
James Wright WI Staff Writer
Aisha Bowe realizes the current STEM field has an insufficient number of minorities but through her company, STEMBoard, she hopes to make an impact in changing that dynamic.
Bowe, a trained aerospace engineer, serves as the president and CEO of STEMBoard, a 20-employee, Arlington-based engineering company.
The company’s charge – to provide its mainly federal government and private sector clientele with the capacity to “solve complex problems, enable integration of technology and mission at key points and provide actionable intelligence,” according to its website.
In 2020, Bowe’s company received recognition by Inc. Magazine as one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S., ranking 2,284.
STEMBoard operates as a certified economically disadvantaged women-owned small business and an 8(a) certified company with a top-secret facilities clearance. The company provides IT services, program and project management, data management and analytics with a bent on providing solutions for their clients. Additionally, STEMBoard works to close the educational achievement gap of minorities through STEM camps, partnerships with historically-Black colleges and universities and counseling youth on career opportunities.
The National Society of Black Engineers reported in 2015 that the percentage of STEM bachelor’s degrees awarded to Black women declined to 4%, down from 5% in 2006. The study also revealed that fewer than 1% of U.S. engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded went to Black females in 2015.
Despite the hurdles, a milestone in aerospace engineering occurred in 2015 when Dr. Wendy Okolo became the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.
5 Aisha Bowe is the president and CEO of STEMBoard, a technology company. (Courtesy photo)
BOWE’S JOURNEY TO FORMING STEMBOARD
Bowe, a native of Ann Arbor, Mich., said when she embarked on an engineering career in high school, she received discouragement from her counselor and family members.
“My high school counselor told me it would be better for me to study cosmetology,” she said. “I was told by my counselor that engineering would be too hard for
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and “boldness.”
“This legislation pushes the envelope,” said Pinsky, who chairs the Senate environmental committee. “It is also conscious of the ability to implement what’s in the bill. It’s a work in progress.”
He pushed for a similar bill to pass last year that failed on the last day of the session.
That’s why lawmakers began work on the bill last summer in order to gain traction and work on any differences with support from state leadership.
Several other provisions in the legislation include:
Reduce statewide greenhouse gas by 60% from 2006 levels by 2030.
New construction of buildings to utilize electricity for hearing and hot water as opposed to natural gas and oil.
Commercial and residential buildings at least 25,000 square feet must reduce emissions to net zero in 18 years with a phase-in method.
Several opponents including Melvin Thompson with the Restaurant Association of Maryland, said phasing out fossil fuels and installing all electric machinery would increase services, appliances and operating costs.
“Restaurants rely on the efficiency and performance of gas for commercial cooking,” said Thompson, who serves as vice president for government and public policy with the association. “Phasing out the use of gas will slow down the cooking process, reduce a chef’s control over the intensity of the heat and also affect the flavor and texture of finished food.”
Erin Appel, representing the Maryland School Bus Contractors Association, spoke on a part of the bill that states by 2024, all local school boards cannot sign a new contract to purchase or use a school bus “that is not a zero-emission ve-
hicle.” The goal would be for all public schools to utilize electric vehicles.
She said some school systems have already signed contracts with bus companies that are year-toyear, five years or even up to 15 years.
“By prohibiting a school board from entering into a contract for the use of a diesel bus beginning in 2024, this bill would in essence be [impacting] huge portions of their school bus fleets,” she said.
Del. Kumar Barve (D-Montgomery County), who chairs the House’s Environmental and Transportation Committee, will sponsor four separate bills in his chamber.
“We want to have a big victory this year and we’re going to get a big victory,” he said. WI @WJFjabariwill me. My family had doubts, too, saying I should get a job at the nearby Ford auto plant because Ford had good benefits.”
“I didn’t listen to the advice and pursued my dream of being an engineer. I love science fiction and it fueled my interest in STEM fields,” she said.
After high school, Bowe attended Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor and in two years received an associate degree. She transferred her credits to the University of Michigan where she earned her bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering there. But not before she had to overcome a demanding curriculum and learn how to associate with more affluent, legacy classmates.
Her perseverance paid off and she received her degree in 2008. A year later, she earned her master’s degree in space systems engineering, also from the University of Michigan.
In 2009, she went to work at the NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in the Flight Trajectory Dynamics and Controls Branch of the Aviation Systems Division as a missions engineer. She worked on satellites and air traffic management and received citations for her work.
She also served as a mentor for young people of color interested in science and engineering careers. While she enjoyed her career at NASA, she decided to strike out on her own as an entrepreneur with STEMBoard which she founded in 2013. She left the government sector in 2015.
“I started STEMBoard because I wanted to run a company,” she said. “That’s why I moved to the Washington, D.C. area. That is where the federal government is.”
In order to assist youth, Bowe created STEMBoard’s LINGO project, a coding kit which teaches hardware and software design through self-paced lessons. The kit contains hardware, an instructional guide and instructional videos.
“LINGO is available at Amazon, Walmart and Target and we have made connections to Bowie State University, General Electric and the Howard University Middle School,” Bowe said. “A lot of teachers use our kit. The feedback we get on it is tremendous. We want kids of color to look at this kit and use and think one day I could be an engineer.” WI @JamesWrightJr10
Student Loan Debt Joins Conversation about Strengthening Black Churches
Sam P.K. Collins WI Staff Writer
For heads of Black religious institutions, sustaining a pipeline of quality church leaders requires strengthening ties between historically Black theological institutions [HBTIs], churches and those aspiring to assume leadership roles in the future.
Earlier this month, a group that includes HBTIs and Black denominational leaders convened a two-day meeting where participants committed to attracting more institutional support for HBTIs and conveyed the urgency of the student debt grappling so many seminary students.
“We have to assist church leaders to understand the burden of debt. They agreed to take the message back to their congregations,” said Delores F. Brisbon, leader of The Gift of Black Theological Education & The Black Church Collaborative (also known as The Collaborative).
The Collaborative held a twoday discussion about student loan debt at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture [NMAAHC], Feb. 9 – 10, which brought together students, deans, presidents and a denominational representative from each of the five participating HBTIs. It preceded a four-day conference scheduled for April during which church and seminary leaders will further explore how to prepare the pulpit for social action.
“The Collaborative is a project to realign the schools with their denominations because enrollment in the past came from those churches,” Brisbon said. “We want to strengthen the pulpit to heal the trauma of the Black experience. It’s a movement to see social change through the lens of faith.”
The Collaborative came out of a prior six-year assessment of the six historic Black theological schools, including Howard School of Divinity. It currently includes: Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University; Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, North Carolina; Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, North Carolina; Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio; and Interdenominational Theological Center [ITC] in Atlanta.
Several of those schools, Hood, Shaw University and Payne Theological, have longstanding ties with the African Methodist Episcopal [AME] Zion Church, Baptist Church, and AME Church, respectively. ITC represents five, Black Christian denominations, including Christian Methodist Episcopal and Church of God in Christ, while the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology grounds itself in African and African-American religious life and culture.
During The Collaborative’s conference, students recounted their experiences with debt and how it not only affected the structure of their family but their ability to provide for their household with jobs that can’t help them comfortably pay back their loans.
Research conducted by ATS estimated the average debt accumulated by Black seminary students at $43,000, an amount $10,000 greater than their white counterparts. The burden of student loan debt has been connected to Black pastors’ decisions to simultaneously pursue other vocations, personnel shortages at Black churches and Black generational poverty.
At Hood Theological Seminary, The Rev. Lawrence Ganzy, Jr. continues to pursue his Master of Divinity, even as his debt from his graduate studies surpasses $40,000. However, with a burgeoning career as an admissions officer at another university, he hasn’t had much concern about how to pay back his loans.
Ganzy, an ordained elder in the AME Zion Church for four years, sees his studies at Hood Theological Seminary as part of a larger plan to spread his ministry inside and outside the church. He said Black seminaries must inspire students to forge unique career paths within their ministry, whether it be in the church or other places where church officials can provide spiritual guidance to others.
In espousing the need to encourage religious study at the undergraduate level, Ganzy explained why movements such as The Collaborative must make such advancements come to fruition.
“We have to develop ways that theological education can receive the same support and resources that other programs receive,” Ganzy said. “It’s a collaborative effort where we can work together so students can receive full rides to seminary with historically Black theological institutions. Even though our HBCUs are receiving millions of dollars, our HBTIs can receive them too. We want to find ways to have our HBTI to survive, thrive and go to the next level.” WI @SamPKCollins
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