Success Through Technology Education (STTE) Foundation was recently presented a $15,000 grant from the El Paso Electric (EPE) to continue its advocacy of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) education. This grant will help support local robotics teams in high schools throughout the borderplex region. Officials with the Paso del Norte Community Foundation, New Mexico State University, the regions’ three largest school districts – Ysleta, Socorro and El Paso, as well as students from Eastwood High School’s Robotics Team were in attendance.

“Our commitment to the community we serve extends far beyond providing a reliable and sustainable source of electricity to each of our customers, it is about partnering with our community and asking, where can we help?” shares Adrian J. Rodriguez, interim CEO of EPE. “We realized there was a need for support for our local robotics teams, and with the help of the STTE Foundation, we were able to create a fund that will assist students and educators directly in a field that is evolving quickly. It is important that we assist our education partners with the ability to develop and retain talent like our youth in our region.”

The STTE Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to partnering with public and private middle and secondary schools and institutions of higher learning to advance the competitiveness of the borderplex region through digital literacy, access to STEAM fields and entrepreneurship opportunities. The EPE grant will go towards STTE’s continued efforts to develop curriculum centered around STEAM, and its robotics program. The STTE Robotics Program includes coding and engineering where over 160 students took advantage of this opportunity.

“For decades we all have been users and consumers of technology; however, the evolution of technology now grants us both access and the ability to craft it the way we would like to see it,” said Joseph Sapien, executive director of the STTE Foundation. “Our youth have the potential and the passion to be leaders in the technology and engineering sectors, so now it is about creating and expanding platforms for them to deem it possible.”

STTE has taken the partnership with EPE a step further by launching the inaugural Sun City Challenge, the Foundation’s newest initiative that will encompass a virtual reality and 3D competition open to high school students within EPE’s service territory. Students are called to re-engineer, design, and educate their community on the power of renewable energy. EPE will use the products created by the winning teams in each category as educational tools and presentations led by the Company’s renewable and emerging technologies department. There will be $10,000 in cash prizes awarded to the winning teams in their respective categories.

For more information, visit sttefoundation.org.