Two recent Seagate-supported educational events in Northern Ireland showed thousands of young people how the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects impact so many aspects of our lives—and can lead to a host of exciting career opportunities.
CultureTECH Junior
Once again, Seagate supported CultureTECH, a week-long festival of technology, media, music and gaming held in September. This year’s event welcomed more than 60,000 people to some 200 events, featuring everything from a massive Minecraft weekend, hands-on 3D printing demonstrations and a comics and creative arts exhibition by top artists and writers working in this genre.
Since the inaugural festival in 2012, Seagate’s funding has been directed at the educational element of the program—enabling organizers to create and develop a dedicated CultureTECH Junior strand for the event.
This year’s flagship schools’ event, funded by Seagate, certainly brought science to life with a bang. Over five days, the Ministry of Science Live stage show wowed some 6,000 local students of all ages with spectacular—and often noisy—demonstrations of scientific principles. And this year, a shorter version of the show was taken to entertain students at Ardnashee Special School.
Staff at the school were thrilled that their students didn’t have to miss out on seeing the show.
“Our school caters to students with a wide range of learning difficulties and associated disabilities, so it’s not easy for staff to take them to events off-site,” explained Dan Byrne, teacher and ICT coordinator. “We really appreciate Seagate and CultureTECH responding to these constraints by bringing the show to us. Our kids and staff got a great kick out of seeing their classroom science brought to life in this way.”
Seagate Real World Science Conference
In October, the annual Seagate Real World Science Conference—hosted by St. Mary’s College—introduced some 250 students, ages 13 to 14, to a wide range of STEM careers via hands-on workshops. Now in its ninth year, this Seagate-led event brings together more than a dozen STEM employers whose workshops give students a taste for the type of work they engage in on a daily basis.
This year’s activities included the science of firefighting, “CSI-style” forensics, robotics, rocket science, product design and prototyping, and more. Also in the mix were a number of Seagate volunteer-led workshops based on the scientific principles and technologies that underpin wafer fabrication.
Brian Burns, VP at Seagate’s Springtown facility, was happy to see employees share their passion for science and technology with local teens and their teachers.
“We’ve built very successful relationships with our neighboring schools and colleges and we’ve been listening to what they’re telling us,” Burns said. “The main message we’re hearing is that the focus needs to be on encouraging students to study the sciences. I can’t think of a better way of doing that than through our Real World Science Conference.”
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Seagate creates space for the human experience by innovating how data is stored, shared and used. Learn more at www.seagate.com.
