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Iridescent Year End Review: What we learned in 2018

2018 was an important year for us – we launched the AI Family Challenge in 13 countries, reached more girls through Technovation than ever before, and helped Technovation students tell their story on Good Morning America. We helped demystify AI for students, families, and the general public through a series of public panels and debates, interviews, and created free curriculum in partnership with researchers and industry experts.

We’re proud of the work we’ve done this year, and more impressed than ever by the young people, families, educators, and community and corporate partners we work with who all tap into their courage to learn something new and create solutions to community problems.

As 2019 gets underway, we’ve been reflecting on our progress this past year (we ask our students to reflect on their work, so it’s only fair we do it too!) and the lessons we learned about our programs and their impact.

Map of problems Iridescent students choose to solve by country

Our participants are ready to change the world. Every year Technovation students address the same Sustainable Development Goals that the UN asks world leaders to tackle – like health, the environment, education, and inequality. We want to make sure that they have the skills they need to keep working on them long after our programs end.

Preparing for the Future: Computational Thinking and 21st Century Skills

We equip students to solve the problems they care about most by teaching them basic technological literacy skills – and then having them apply those skills directly.

Technovation students develop a basic understanding of programming and improve their computational thinking skills. In partnership with MIT, we evaluated projects submitted in 2018 and found that students demonstrate development of key computational thinking skills.

Evaluations from MIT, WestEd and Oregon State University found that after participating in our programs, students are more self-confident, better problem solvers, better entrepreneurs, moreresilient, and more self-reliant. We even found that after continuous exposure (16 or more hours) to our programs, students perform better on standardized tests.

Getting Ready for the Future of Work: Professional Development for Mentors

Mentors are vital to our programs’ success, and we are committed to ensuring that their experience supporting girls and families is positive and enriching. In 2018, we engaged over 4,500 mentors in our programs.

Iridescent 2018 Mentor Skills Development

Mentoring helps professionals develop the soft skills they can use to advance and adapt in their field. Before beginning the season, only 25% of Technovation mentors were confident in their ability to mentor a team. By the end of the season, 82% of mentors expressed confidence in their mentorship abilities.

  • 66% felt they had improved at mentoring youth
  • 50% improved at ideation (developing innovative ideas)
  • 47% improved their team building skills

We anticipate that these skills will continue to increase in demand as professional development efforts focus on “soft skills” and lifelong learning initiatives in 2019 and beyond.

Take a look at our 2018 Year’s End infographic to learn more about what students and mentors learn and how they grow more prepared to solve big problems. You can also get a peek at what we think the top trends in Artificial Intelligence fields will be!

3 Steps to Connect Your Professional Development & Social Impact Initiatives to Improve Employee Engagement

Offering employees meaningful opportunities to use & expand their professional skills through social good positively impacts job performance and satisfaction.

The tight labor market and competitive global economy make it a worker’s market with talented individuals having a lot of choice in their employers. For many, especially coveted millennial and gen x workers, pay isn’t the simple solution it once was to retain the best people. Employees want jobs at companies which align with their lifestyles, speak to their personal values, and – above all – give them opportunities to learn and grow while working on meaningful projects.

How can employers stand out in a sea of options? There isn’t a simple answer. One way to rise to the surface is to embrace and encourage professional learning and development. As the skill sets needed to stay professionally relevant evolve, consider every aspect of your business a skill-building opportunity, including social impact initiatives that give employees purpose and meaning and build their professional skills.

Being a good corporate citizen is still viewed by many organizations as a “check the box” marketing or PR tactic, but a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) partner provides opportunities for your employees to make a difference in the community while also developing skills that enhance their career and prepare them for the future of work. 94 percent of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. 70% of millennial employees also believe companies should make a difference in local and global communities, with a company’s engagement in the community influencing their decision to work there.

Creating purpose-driven, lifelong learning experiences on the job for your employees is a compelling reason to find ways of connecting your organization’s social impact and professional development, however, many companies aren’t engaging their employees with programs connecting these two initiatives – are you?

Here are three ways you can assess your existing and prospective social impact programs to ensure you create partnerships that improve the communities where you work while investing in your employees’ professional development.

1. Assess your corporate values and identify partnerships that enable you to successfully live up to them.

It is key to select social impact partners that align to and build upon core values held by the corporation. Causes you choose to champion have a major influence on your culture and should align to the values that originally attracted your employees. Evaluate what your organization stands for; survey your employees and identify what broad social issues resonate strongest with them. Resources like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are a good starting point to identify broad social issues facing our world that align back to your organization’s business and values. For example, if education is an important value, define what that means to your organization. It may mean partnering with an online education platform or offering stipends to staff to encourage lifelong learning. Or, it could mean encouraging tutoring and mentoring in the communities where your employees live and work.2. 

GM mentor works with families participating in Iridescent’s AI Family Challenge.

2. Offer professional development opportunities that are purpose-driven and prepare employees for the future of work.

Employees want opportunities to make a difference in communities where they live and work. According to a recent Blackbaud study, nearly half of millennials and gen x surveyed donate their time to make an impact in causes they care about. Even more have participated in sponsored events like a run or walk. Giving time is an increasingly important way younger generations with less disposable income choose to support causes. But giving back can do more. In addition to improving communities and the emotional wellness of employees, it can also positively impact their skills. Soft skills like creativity, communication, and collaboration are becoming increasingly important as automation shifts the future of work. Employees who have volunteered for Iridescent’s global technology and engineering education programs reported being 83% more creative at work and 70% surveyed said the opportunity improved their relationship with their company.  

3. Provide and promote employee benefits beyond money.

Pay is only one of several factors affecting overall job satisfaction and employee engagement. Employees rarely stay based on money alone. Money is often ranked behind career and skill advancement opportunities and recognition and respect in the workplace. Be sure to emphasize benefits other than pay – like skills-based volunteering where your employees learn and grow. Or, spotlight extraordinary employees in your organization that make a difference in the community and show how it’s also benefiting their professional development. And, don’t forget to carve out time for employees to give back and grow.

Identifying and partnering with nonprofit organizations that align to your company’s corporate values and provide purpose-driven experiences for your employees that enhance their skill sets are just some of the ways that you can increase job satisfaction and long-term retention at your organization.

Technology and engineering education nonprofit, Iridescent regularly partners with organizations around the world including Google, NVIDIA, GM, Salesforce, and Adobe to connect professionals building the newest technology with educators, parents, and kids curious to learn them. Visit iridescentlearning.org to learn more about how your organization can engage its employees through mentorship opportunities that use and build their professional skills while also inspiring others to be innovators and leaders.

How passion projects contribute to work success: Staying curious and practicing the learning process

The world and workplace are changing fast, and there’s a lot of uncertainty over what that will mean for the future of work. So how do you prepare for an uncertain future? We think that lifelong learning is key.

When asked what skills are most important to future success, most employees list a mixture of technical skills and soft skills. For instance, 85% of people said a detailed understanding of how to use a computer was “extremely” or “very” important, but 85% of people also said the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds and strong writing and communication skills were “extremely” or “very” important.

It’s not just employees who recognize the value of soft skills – 77% of CEOs say they struggle to find the creativity and innovation they need on their teams, and specifically list skills like adaptability, problem-solving, creativity, and leadership as being important in new hires.

But what does it look like to learn those skills?

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How you can explore new technology together as a family: Mother-Daughter AI Innovators in Detroit

Christina is 9 years old. She loves dancing, art, and science, and every morning she recites her own affirmations to remind herself of her inner strength and values.

Dina is Christina’s mom. She encourages and supports Christina to try new things, reminds her of her beauty and her intelligence, and helps find new opportunities to continually help Christina explore her curiosity. So when the community resources center where Christina takes dance lessons announced they would be offering the Curiosity Machine AI Family Challenge, Dina signed them up, excited by the opportunity to learn more about science and technology. With that, Christina and Dina became part of the community of nearly 7,000 students and parents  participating in the AI Family Challenge across the world.

Since then, Dina and Christina have attended every session of the program, learning more each week as they work through progressively harder projects. For Dina, it’s led to her feeling more positively about AI –  “I feel like I’m open to AI, I think it benefits our society, but [there’s] a small percentage that feels like will it take over… but after the AI class, it gives you more of the insight on how safe it can be vs. a human as an example. It gives you behind the scenes insight.”

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