Base 11’s Senior Vice President of Partnerships and Programs, Ingrid Ellerbe, was recently named among 100 Corporate Women in STEM. Following is her account of efforts to fill the STEM talent pipeline, as published in the 2018 issue.
Maria Hernandez was raised in East Los Angeles by immigrant parents who had little formal education, and in a neighborhood where the closest thing to an engineer was a construction worker. As a community college student, she struggled to keep up with peers who came from better high schools, but she never gave up. She started driving over 100 miles roundtrip on Saturdays to participate in an academic internship at the University of California, Irvine, where she learned skills including programming Raspberry Pi and using 3D printers. Maria’s experience won’t end there. She is one of the most plausible examples of paying it forward becoming a Base 11 ambassador and role model for the “art of the possible.”
Alina Rai was born in Nepal to parents who wanted her to grow into a traditionally female role. Her entire family was shocked and confused when she announced she wanted to become an aerospace engineer and then, while still completing her associate’s degree, was accepted into a paid summer engineering program at Caltech. She was the only woman in her cohort that summer, and yet she was surrounded by so much support and encouragement that she said she’d never felt more empowered as a woman in a STEM field. Watching Alina grow in her confidence from the day she stepped into the Caltech Aerospace Mentorship Program to the culminating presentation of her capstone project was similar to witnessing a butterfly emerge from a cocoon.
Divon Pleasant stood out as an applicant for the workforce development initiative underway in the San Francisco Bay Area. Coming out of high school, he had to choose between being able to survive with what we think of as creature comforts or continuing his education to enhance his employment options. Fortunately for the Fortune 500 company he works for now, he chose the latter. Divon is well on his way to his original dream of becoming a software engineer. In his apprenticeship, his employers cite his strong communication skills, ability to pick up new responsibilities with minimal supervision, and ability to grasp new learning quickly. In addition to his technical skills, these are all representative needs of today’s STEM 2.0 employee.
Ingrid Ellerbe (right) with Edie Fraser, chairman and founder of Million Women Mentors and STEMconnector at the 2017 Million Women Mentors Summit.
These are just a few of the incredibly dedicated and inspiring young men and women whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing through Base 11. I met them as applicants – each one of them unsure that they deserved to be in the programs. Over the months, I watched them flourish as they gained skills through experiential, project-based learning – both hard skills in engineering and technology, as well as those increasingly important workplace skills like collaboration and design thinking.
At the end of their programs, when I watched them receive their certificates of completion, which they earned not without a few setbacks and tears along the way, I noticed them all standing a little taller.
I truly believe these students are ready to become the STEM leaders of the 21st century, bringing with them a rich diversity of background, experience, and vision that will enable them to bring to fruition a future that my generation can only imagine.
At Base 11, we are putting high-potential, low-resource community college students like Alina, Maria, and Divon onto direct pathways to STEM success every day, whether that means continuing on to earn a four-year STEM degree, launching their own start-up, or landing a well-paid STEM job. In doing so, we know we are helping to grow and strengthen a middle class that is made up of all Americans.
We do so by connecting the dots between employers, academia and philanthropists — whether it’s reverse-engineering a curriculum to fill a specific talent gap for a major employer, or providing short-term “innovation challenges” from employers in one of our three Base 11 Innovation Centers featuring an MIT-originated Fab Lab. We appreciate that there are many kinds of STEM success, and that all of them improve the lives of the individual, their community, and our country.
At Base 11, we believe that each of these young people will be multipliers – inspiring and improving those around them, not only as role models but as mentors and leaders. It is because of them that I know the future is bright.