In honor of National Robotics Week on April 8-16, Perficient reaffirms our commitment to inspire people of all ages and genders to pursue careers in robotics and other STEM fields. We previously discussed how our partnership with the Brazilian robot building team, RioBotz, and their BattleBots competitor, Minotaur, allows us to interact with STEM enthusiasts on a global scale. We also want to acknowledge and celebrate some of the other ways Perficient contributes to advancing robotics education and enthusiasm.

Perficient Gives

The Perficient Gives charitable match program offers colleagues the opportunity to make donations to eight organizations that are matched by Perficient. Each organization was carefully chosen based on its alignment to the two pillars of our corporate giving philosophy – advancing STEM education and improving health and wellbeing. FIRST Inspires (FIRST) is one of the organizations Perficient colleagues can choose to support. FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is a global robotics community and the world’s leading youth-serving nonprofit advancing STEM education. Their mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build their skills, inspire innovation, and foster well-rounded life capabilities, including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

Read More: Perficient Donates $80,000 to Advance STEM Education and Improve Health and Wellbeing

Through their programs and equity and diversity initiatives, FIRST hopes to close the gap on projections showing a potential lack of millions of engineers in a generation and the underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM fields. They are helping prepare young people for the future and inspiring them to pursue careers in STEM and robotics. FIRST offers a full progression of programs starting from Pre-K through high school, providing a space for all students and volunteers to educate, innovate, ideate, and learn from one another.

The Perficient Gives charitable match program was introduced in 2022, and Perficient and our colleagues have donated more than $14,000 to FIRST Inspires so far. The Perficient Giving ERG also hosted a “Get to Know” event to educate our colleagues on FIRST’s mission and how each of us can get involved. The event featured female leaders from FIRST in addition to a panel of alumnae who gave colleagues an overview of the important work FIRST is doing to help shape the minds of today’s youth to be tomorrow’s tech leaders. The panel of FIRST program graduates provided a firsthand account of the impact the organization had on their education and career paths.

Perficient proudly supports FIRST Inspire’s mission, and our colleagues share a commitment to giving back to our communities, making a difference, and advancing STEM education. We strive to inspire, educate, and empower the youth to pursue careers in technology through our support of FIRST Inspires.

Perficient’s Techie Masters

Perficient is proud to sponsor Techie Masters, a robotics program providing hands-on education to young women located within the rural community of Valparaíso, Colombia. With our support, Techie Masters is enabling a group of ambitious young women to compete in robotics competitions and become future tech leaders.

We partnered with the Girl Powered Program to provide the team and its instructor with the materials, hands-on education, and training resources necessary to build a fully functioning competitive robot. The team recently geared up for a practice competition after several weeks of building, learning, and trial and error. The Perficient Techie Masters won that competition and is currently preparing for the 2023 national competition where the team will compete against other Colombian youth robotics teams. The winner will earn the honor of representing Colombia in an international competition taking place in Dallas, Texas.

The Techie Masters were also provided the opportunity to travel to the Perficient Medellín office to get an inside look at what a career in technology looks like. They even received a special message from Team RioBotz!

Through this program, participants are encouraged to overcome new challenges through teamwork while discovering the benefits that STEM brings to their lives and their communities. Perficient’s Techie Masters are empowered to turn an interest into a passion and realize their potential of achieving a bright future in technology.

We produced a mini-series on YouTube that follows the journey of the Techie Masters as they prepare for their national robotics competition. Watch below:

 

Perficient is dedicated to furthering STEM education, and specifically robotics, not just during National Robotics Week, but all year-round. Our colleagues are passionate about making a positive difference on the world and bettering the communities in which we live and work. Perficient’s commitment to FIRST Inspires and Techie Masters, as well as our partnership with Team RioBotz and Minotaur, help lead us to our goal of advancing STEM education for all around the world.

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