STEMx (formerly, National STEM School) was created to address the glaring gap between the unimaginative manner in which science is taught in school and how experiential learning can make it interesting, relevant, and closer to real-life.
STEMx is based on the ideology that science is best taught by engaging students in actually exploring freely and creating things under the guidance of qualified professionals rather than being on the receiving end of lectures by teachers. This requires high-level of training and preparation from these professionals as well as a keen eye on converting real life problems into classroom learning experiences. Participation gives young learners a leg-up in choosing the right careers and fields of study and today’s highly competitive world of undergraduate admissions as well as inculcate curiosity and a love for making, building, and learning among other things.
Whether students are developing an app to capture and measure the dynamic properties of balls on a billiards table and then applying these ideas to other real-world dynamical systems; creating genetically engineered bacteria to do useful things (such as cleaning up the environment); writing software for search engines or artificially intelligent language models; or going through a real-life astronomical data to find exoplanets and asteroids in space, these kinds of problems both interest and challenge young learners, discover their passions, and inspire them to pursue a STEM Career.
The Flagship Programme of STEMx are our STEM Bootcamps - 8-10 day residential programmes for 15-18 year olds organised several times a year at multiple leading Universities around the country. Today, we run 4 such programmes - Science Summer School at Lahore University of Mgmt Sciences, Engineering Summer School at National University of Sciences and Technology, Math+CS Winter School at Institute of Business Administration, and a Life Sciences Winter School at The Aga Khan University - each attracting about 40 students selected on merit, through a rigorous process, from across the country. These programmes bring together carefully chosen faculty through a series of strategic partnerships to weave together a learning experience that is innovative, academically rigorous, multidisciplinary, but above all, fun.
In addition to this flagship programme, STEMx also does a series of online interactions (STEM:NEXT) with leading scholars and innovators from around the world to engage students in what is happening at the cutting-edge of science and technology. We host more than 50 such scholars every year - over 150 since 2016 with many coming every year - to inspire and inform. These talks (and accompanying quizzes) also become the mechanisms for gauging interest, aptitude, and grit to select students.
Apart from our bootcamp, we also offer advanced programmes to alums, summer research internships, as well as continued career guidance and mentoring for as long as they need.
Over the last several years, we have run over 15 STEM Bootcamps - starting with 1 in 2016 to 2 in 2019, and 3-4 in 2024. Over 20,000 students have applied to our programme and more than 3000 have gone through our rigorous selection process comprising listening to 10 STEM:NEXT Talks and answering quizzes, followed by an interview. Over the years, we have graduated over 500 alums from the programme going to some of leading Universities around the world and in the region including Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, UCL, Imperial, Kings, NYU-AD, TAMU-Q, Minerva, LUMS, AKU, NUST, and Habib etc.
When we were trying to conceive of The STEM School, we were thinking of creating an experience that was at least two notches above what is usually possible in a Pakistani School. STEMx is like AP-Physics, or AP-Biology but on steroids! Once you open and stretch the minds to the talented young learners, they never go back.
While 10-days shouldn't matter much in the overall scheme of things as kids spend 10-12 years in school rote-learning and running crazy after grades, we've seen life-changing transformations in kids that go through our programme. Usually, at the end of the 10-days almost half of the 40 kids would come to us and tell us that when they came to the programme they knew what they wanted to become, but now they don't know any more. Almost all the kids do not want to go back to school as they learn a totally new way of experiencing science - not available to them in schools anywhere
The STEM Bootcamps have evolved, a bit, over time though the basic structure remains the same. For the first days of the Bootcamp, every student spends a day experiencing one STEM subtheme. During the day he/she spends 4-5 hours solving a real-world problem that a university professor or scientist would work in. He also takes a small number of theory classes (1-2) and learn visit a Lab or learn a STEM Skill Masterclass. In the evening after an hour or socialising or sports, he/she will spend an hour listening to a guest speaker who will give career or life-skills advice to the group. In the final 4-5 days of the STEM Bootcamp, the students will choose one (or two) subthemes and do a hands-on project in that area.
The only major modification in this, since 2020 when COVID hit and STEM School had to go virtual for a year, is the introduction of online STEM:NEXT Talks that have since become a permanent feature of the STEM School's selection process.
If you are in high school within the age group of 13- 18 interested in STEM, you need to apply at our website at https://pif.org.pk/stem-school
