Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

In the last issue of his blog Paul Borawski, ASQ CEO, first welcomes new bloggers who join the "ASQ Influential Voices". They are 19 new voices, who joint to the 13 original voices to form a community of 32 Quality professionals working together to "raise the voice of Quality" worldwide. Personally is a challenge to be part of this group, and allows me to learn and share ideas and thoughts about Quality and its approaches.

After that introduction, Paul tells us that in the USA in February from 19 to 25 is celebrated Engineering Week and invites us to reflect on the importance for any country to develop professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM its acronym in English).

If companies and countries are going to be competitive, the strategy for achieving this is to generate real innovation, both in its processes, and the products offered to customers. One of the ways to achieve these is through STEM professionals.

Reading the various blogs that have written on the subject, I find that there is awareness of the importance of this approach, but it is vital to develop a long-term process that achieves this goal.

A reflection: Do not look back and regret, but look ahead and prepare.

Jimena Calfa in Lets'talk About Quality, indicates the reality of Argentina, I think in many countries of LA (and maybe the world) repeats the same story: fears of mathematics in the early years, little interest in these careers in college, high dropout rates during the process, and finally very few that acomplish a degree without have repeated at least one level. All of these means inefficiency across all process.

Knowing the problems some solutions might be:

- The best professionals, those who really love mathematics should be teaching from those early years (schools) and have the ability to make the process simple, fun and easy. This should be repeated along the whole process. That is the best professionals dedicated to form new human talent.

- The teaching material should be designed for younger generation and make use of interactive technologies (web 2.0).

- Teaching methods should be challenging, allowing to discover and generate self concepts, without limiting the creativity to teach everything related to STEM. Using existing technologies should not place emphasis on methods that can be developed in spreadsheets or specialized software, but to teach students to analyze the data and results and make decisions based on them.

- Always a positive environment should be generated in where learning math and science is fun and that being an engineer is not to be boring, but interesting and clever.

Another lesson learned is that never is too late to manifest the love for mathematics, statistics and science. Many Quality professionals originally had no Quality training, but then discovered or needed to develop these skills and fell in love in the process, and then became the best broadcasters to promote positively the formation of new professionals in these areas.

The various certifications that ASQ develops have played a key role, as they have promoted interest in mathematics and Quality. There are also a number of documents generated in the ASQ to promote the adoption of thinking tools for kids and learning quality.

Currently in several Ecuadorian universities are developing post graduate programs to teach statistics and its application to different professions, who at first were not focused on statistics and mathematics, leading to improved knowledge of these disciplines.

As a final thought I believe we must be convinced that the new STEM professionals and everybody must see that the study of mathematics and science allows us to improve our lives and we have to have fun and enjoy this process.

Cesar Diaz