- Eighteen scholarships were granted in this first call. A total of 100 scholarships will be granted for the 2020-2024 period.
- Impulso STEM, with an investment of 15 million pesos, will impact more than 12,000 students in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca, August 24, 2020.- Iberdrola México granted the first scholarships included in the Impulso STEM Project to 18 students in Oaxaca – half women and half men – after a stringent screening process with the participation of the UNAM’s Institute of Renewable Energies (IER) and the Universidad Tecnológica de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca (UTVCO).
Impulso STEM seeks that students in Oaxaca who are interested in engineering programs succeed from admission through graduation. Therefore, the scholarship includes the UTVCO’s enrollment fee and the four-monthly grant to cover transportation, maintenance, accommodation and field trips expenses.
In this first call, more than 500 youngsters interested in studying programs like Sustainable and Protected Agriculture, Information Technologies, Renewable Energies, and Mechatronics at the UTVCO participated, 18 of which obtained the scholarship for their academic merits and their social and economic level.
One scholarship recipient, Natalia Ortiz Pérez, from the San Pedro el Alto community in the Zimatlán de Álvarez municipality, wants to help her community through the Information Technology program. “While I was studying senior high school, I used to visit children from elementary and junior high schools in other communities and provide mathematics workshops. I like to meet new people, learn from them, and be able to teach others what I know.”
For Natalia, technology is very important because it allows society to go forward. For this reason, she took part in the Mujeres Líderes (Leading Women) network in STEM, which young participants received the advice of speakers from different countries who shared their experiences, achievements, and what they went through to become female entrepreneurs. As part of the program, she plans to carry out a project to help reduce pollution in her community.
Another student who received a scholarship, Sandra Juárez García, from the Yuvila community in the Santa Catarina Ixtepeji municipality, chose the same program because she believes that “technology can facilitate the development of many things, including education.” Therefore, one of her goals is to bring a better Internet to support students from the three institutions located in her community.
Sandra was interested in technology since she started senior high-school, where she learned to assemble, maintain computer equipment, and install programs. Today, she intends to expand her computer knowledge and wants to understand the basis for app and website design and manipulation, and subsequently develop her own content.
“The development of the south-southeast of Mexico is a priority that will come true through the joint efforts of the government, the academy, and the private sector. Iberdrola México believes that growth in the region begins with actions that benefit youth education. Therefore, we want to provide them with better academic and professional development opportunities through programs like Impulso STEM”, said Enrique Alba, the energy company’s CEO.
With an initial investment of 15 million pesos, Impulso STEM will have a direct impact on at least one hundred public schools and over 12,000 students in the Valles Centrales and the Istmo de Oaxaca regions, through various lines of action that will allow, in the future, to better meet labor market needs and increase the state’s productivity and competitiveness:
- Training of teachers and career guidance providers to optimize how they transmit knowledge on science and technology.
- Development of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses of elementary and middle-higher education institutions.
- A communication campaign that encourages young people, mainly women, to study engineering.
- Delivery of 100 scholarships for the UTVCO to students in Oaxaca from public institutions.
Besides Impulso STEM program, Iberdrola México will invest over 300 million pesos to implement a wide range of social projects in Mexico, including Luces de Esperanza (Lights of Hope), a program to bring electricity through solar panels to rural communities, and Construir para Educar (Build to Educate), designed to rebuild 50 schools affected by the 2017 earthquakes in Oaxaca.
Learn more about the outcome of the Beca Impulso STEM 2020 at https://impulsostem.com/convocatoria-2020/.
