Some more Ideas to promote STEM education in next generation

This month, Bill writes about the importance of promoting Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) education and discusses on aspects of how to create and encourage the next generation of STEM professionals.  In 2014, through an ASQ survey, members were asked to provide advice to engineering students on how to develop the STEM skills.

The advice from ASQ members were on topics such as - i) improve analytical thinking and develop ability for big picture thinking, ii) improve communication skills, iii) find qualified mentors, iv) take business courses, v) have well-rounded interests including arts, and, vi) form team projects and strong organizations.

The survey from ASQ was a fantastic effort and another great social initiative from ASQ.  While the member survey resulted in various useful advice to students and the budding engineering community, I would like add and complement some more thoughts, as listed below:

1. Firm up fundamentals - Many a times, the student missed to learn the basics of science and technology courses and, in turn, they find it difficult to take up advanced courses.  The school curriculums should be adjusted to firm up to teach students on fundamental topics which will help lay a strong foundation in students and can generate or promote interest to learn science, technology and mathematics.  Educational organizations can provide more opportunities for those students to catch up on learning STEM fundamentals

2. Foster ideation, innovation by setting up local clubs and chapters - Young generation always have tons of innovative ideas.   Many have and think about their ideas and, unfortunately, do not proceed further to build or test the ideas.  It is important for schools and other business organizations to build local clubs or chapters (similar to Toastmasters club) to foster ideation and innovation etc

3. Promote education through social media - The new generation really embraces social media and daily find time to spent there.  Social media can transform as a channel to foster new generation education.   Business organizations and schools must leverage social media to promote networking, knowledge sharing, learning amongst students

4. Intrinsically motivate to learn through gamification - Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are getting popular now a days.  Top schools around the world now offer free online education to millions of students.  With proper use of gamification and MOOCs, students can be intrinsically motivated to learn STEM topics

5. Provide more infrastructure for hands-on experiments - While there will be plenty of avenues to learn theoretical topics, it is important to have the best infrastructure available to try-out what the students have learned.  Universities, schools, business organizations must join hands to set up "open-labs" for students to come and try hands-on experiments and practical exercises.  Simulations will play a big role, with emergence of mobile, big data and cloud, online infrastructure also needs to be set up for such needs.

STEM is extremely important and the foundation of growth for world economies.  It is therefore important for the world community to participate and contribute towards various initiatives to develop strong STEM professionals.

  

Who influenced and Inspired me on Quality?

Bill's blog post of this month is on the topic "Finding Inspiration From Quality Leaders".    It was a great learning experience for me reading about these two leaders, Secretary O'Neill and Governor Cuomo,  who preached and practiced quality - truly inspiring personalities.

Bill highlights 3 key points that Secretary O'Neill implemented during his tenure as a CEO at Alcoa - i) Making safety on the job as his and organization's top priority, ii) to treat everybody with dignity and respect, and, iii) be the best in the world at everything you do.  I now understand the secret of success of great leaders - they simply practice and preach strong quality fundamentals.  Per Bill, Governor Cuomo transformed the New York State Local Motor Vehicle Department to reduce customer wait times and increase efficiency.  Governor Cuomo made it very clear that quality is the recognized and inspired standard for New York State Government operations.

Bill, in his blog post, asks the ASQ Influential Voices Bloggers to write about those quality leaders and their key teachings and contributions.

My teacher and Professor Dr. SM Kannan exposed me to the field of quality.   He is an expert in the field of quality in topics such as - selective assembly, design of experiments, Taguchi techniques, Total Quality Management etc.  I would like to list down some of his key teachings that transformed me from a student to a quality professional:

a) Always aim for long-term results  - I was taught to not get worried about short-term losses and my teacher always mentored me to focus only on long-term results.  Here, he indirectly taught me to focus on "quality assurance" over "quality control" as a success measure.

b) Ensure total quality - When it comes to any task, activity or project, one has to ensure quality at all levels - customer, process, product and culture.  He insisted to always practice Total Quality Management over fragmented approaches.

c) There is no substitute for excellence - Another key teaching was to always demonstrate excellence and there are no substitutes.  Continuous improvement is the key and regular measurement of incremental growth is very important.  He taught me to learn every day and up-skill regularly. Once he said, if you are unable to add a new entry to your Curriculum Vitae (CV), at least once every six months, that means your career is stalling.  The importance of quantitative measurement of results was a key learning for me.

d) Hard work is always rewarded - Last but not the least, he always practiced perseverance and hard work and made me firmly believe that I will be more lucky and successful only when I work hard.

My professor laid a good and solid foundation of quality for me and I believe that his teachings are really valuable to all.

Next Generation Open Quality Communities

This was one of those blog posts by Bill that made me think quite a bit, before I could pen my thoughts.  The blog post revolves around the article by Brooks Carder, a long time member of ASQ. Brooks, in his article, makes a strong point about quality - "After all, quality is responsible for many of the things that makes life better".   Quoting some of Brooks thoughts, Bill has asked 2 questions to the fellow ASQ bloggers - how to encourage those who work on quality to understand their own value, and, how to spread the message of quality in a marketplace that is primarily focused on other objectives.

I agree with Brooks and believe that quality is responsible to make our lives better - directly or indirectly, visibly or invisibly.  Conversely, poor quality products and services give immense trouble to the society; examples are in plenty - from automobile recalls to airplane accidents - attributed to poor quality.

It is important to encourage those who work on quality - both individuals and enterprises.   Governments, ASQ, and Other Professional Bodies have put in various mechanisms in place for this.  For example, ASQ members with high experience and proven contributions towards quality are awarded with Senior and Fellow member statuses.  ASQ also recognizes Quality Practitioners and Gurus for their contributions towards quality through its prestigious Awards and Scholarships.   Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (MBNQA) is awarded to US companies that excel in Quality.   In lines with MBNQA, there are other awards to enterprises and organizations that consistently demonstrate high quality and performance excellence; examples are Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) award in India for Tata group companies and National Quality Award by American Healthcare Association (AHCA) - for performance excellence.  A complete list of National Quality Awards can be found here.

We can now see that there are lots of mechanisms to recognize, motivate and inspire individuals and enterprises, in the form of awards, scholarships, rewards etc., to contribute towards quality.  The big question to ask is - are these mechanisms sufficient enough to encourage those who work on quality to understand their own value.  May be not!

While quality awards primarily focus on extrinsic motivation, the quality professionals and practitioners must ideally also be motivated intrinsically.   Like the open source software communities,  global quality professional communities will need to be formed that work on creating and improving innovative and practical quality concepts, tools, techniques and processes for the betterment of society.   Professional bodies like ASQ can facilitate the formation of such communities by creating platforms for collaboration, research and development, and implementation.   These communities will need to completely forget the commercial aspects, whatsoever, and primarily focus on contributions towards innovation in quality and improvement of human society.

Today's is a highly collaborative world.  Due to the advancements in smart devices, internet and network technologies, quality professionals, across the world, can stay closely connected and collaborate in real-time.   While various quality communities and groups exist today, they need to be tweaked, restructured or re-engineered for the modern world scenarios and needs.  The newer quality communities will motivate creation of newer quality concepts and tools and also bring to light newer quality gurus to the world.   ASQ Influential Blogger community is a welcome initiative from ASQ for such a collaborative platform that connects quality professionals across the world.  Further newer platforms are yet to emerge and evolve!