The “I” in “I-STEM” …

Today, I attended the Piedmont Triad Partnership/WIRED Capstone Event in Greensboro, NC. During the “New Design Focus in Triad: Design Consortium and Architectural Design Hub” presentation I was struck by what is happening in this area and how it applied to the “I” in “I-STEM” concepts of a previous blog October 2009 blog I-STEM, which suggested we should expand the concept of STEM to I-STEM, to include Imagination/Innovation.

Margaret Collins, Director – Creative Enterprises and the Arts, Piedmont Triad Partnership has been leading an initiative that focuses on “Creative Enterprises and the Arts” under the Department of Labor Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) Program. Today’s Capstone Event was a report of that work which has occurred over the past three years.

Emily Stover DeRocco, President, The Manufacturing Institute made a statement in the Opening Plenary Session that we should “Have a Workforce ready for almost everything.” My thoughts were this is just what I-STEM is all about. Having a Workforce that has competence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) with the Imagination/Innovation good stuff as described in my November 2009 blog “CTE-I-STEM Cookie” will go a long way in satisfying that statement.

Triad Design Leadershop website documents the concept of Create – Change as conducted by five heavy hitters in the Creative Design area.

• David Rose – Designer of Tactile and Environmentally Aware Devices

• Bill Grant – Designer of Business and brand Experiences
      "Design is more than Decorating"

• Claudia Kotchka – Change Agent and Design Evangelist

• Jason Manley – Interactive Media and Game Designer

• David Adjaye & Phil Freelon – Innovative Architects of Public Sector Spaces

It appears these illustrations speak quite well to the concept of “I” in my blogs on “I-STEM” and “CTE-I-STEM Cookie”.

I am of the opinion that you can have the STEM skill sets and not necessarily get a product, but if you have I-STEM skill sets; there is a higher probability of getting a product. Does this make sense?

Postscript 7/21/2011
I recently discovered this website http://steam-notstem.com/ which adds "Arts" to STEM. I feel it addresses somewhat the idea which I had written about in this blog. I now promote I-STEAM to include "Arts"; it emphasizes the importance of creativity which may not be oblivious in STEM.