EDUCATION FIRST STEPS
BIG DREAMS CAN BE ACHIEVED IN SMALL PLACES orn and raised in rural South Carolina, Steven Brown
about opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is because he considers rural communities to be outliers and a place of untapped talent.
B “Youth in these areas possess
a natural gift of problem solving, which is used in everyday STEM careers,” he explained. “Such abilities are needed regularly to excel in communities with high poverty and limited resources,” he added. “When you put
the principles of STEM in front of these youth, a light bulb comes on. DIG takes a ‘holistic
approach’ to increase STEM awareness by including the community in development and planning of its programs and events. It’s like Friday Night Lights,” he said.
DIG is short for Dreams,
Imagination, and Gift Development, and Brown founded it in 2013 to build a STEM
pipeline from the ground up. The DIG program plans to bridge the gap between resources and communities and to
“The mission is to instill a belief in youth, children, and communities that big dreams can be achieved in small places.”
– Steven Brown, on DIG’s vision
provide rural children the same benefi ts as their counterparts in metropolitan areas. In an era of huge budget cuts, DIG also looks to
partner with corporations as well as small- and medium-sized businesses and organizations in the communities that DIG serves. According to DIG, approximately 19 percent of public school children across America are enrolled in rural area
14 USBE&IT | CONFERENCE ISSUE 2018
has always seen potential in countryside places. Part of the reason he is dedicated to raising awareness
editors@ccgmag.com by Lango Dean
schools, where there is little or no funding for after-school and summer programs. “Rural community youth face the same challenges as any other adolescent, but studies show that the challenges of rural communities are sometimes greater than those of large cities and metro areas,” DIG states. “The U.S. rural graduation rate continued to decrease over the past four years. We feel the reason for this negative trend is the lack of assets available to youth in these areas. Trends will continue unless
something is done,” Brown said. Brown refers to himself as an “ambassador for change” because he is committed to developing rural communities. Through high-level
conversations with like-minded people, he has expanded DIG’s services to rural areas across South Carolina.
“The mission is to instill
a belief in youth, children, and communities that big dreams can be achieved in small places,” he said about DIG’s vision.
DIG is one of the fi rst organizations
to roll out STEM enrichment, after-school, summer, and virtual mentoring programs in
underserved communities in South Carolina. DIG also founded the DIG STEM Festival to serve rural areas in the state. In 2016 the STEM fi esta attracted over 2,000 people from neighboring counties, and more than twenty exhibitors had their technology wares on display. The DIG STEM Festival provides an opportunity for outdoor exchange between children, teenagers, adults, and STEM professionals. As a controls engineer with General Electric, Brown
serves on the industrial Internet front lines. Nearly half of GE’s 300,000 employees are engineers. His GE job requires an understanding of industrial automation systems, experience with industrial control systems and industrial automation programming, and an ability to learn new software, hardware, and automation equipment and eff ectively implement it. An early-career professional, Brown graduated from the
University of South Carolina in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. “I was part of my school’s Gifted and Talented program, and through that, I got to visit a BMW plant,” he said.
That one trip forever changed Brown’s life. “Now imagine if every child in rural communities got that
same exposure,” he said. For more information about DIG and to learn ways to support this initiative, visit
www.digdp.org. S
www.blackengineer.com
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