INCLUDES Initiative (Conference): Reimagining STEM Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

This conference award, funded by NSF’s Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Initiative, is creating an actionable vision for broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) innovation & entrepreneurship (I&E). Using iterative design and ideation during a conference workshop, followed by working groups that center the perspectives and experiences of individuals historically excluded from STEM, participants from different backgrounds and identities will create a core vision and roadmap for a reimagined, inclusive I&E ecosystem. This project is expected to meaningfully advance the field by redefining approaches to STEM I&E, opening multiple new pathways to advance inclusive innovation, and generating new definitions of entrepreneurship, disruption, and success. The conference is also expected to create economic opportunities and benefits to those across the I&E ecosystem who have been denied these opportunities. The conference will bring together a diverse core network of participating STEM I&E experts and expanded partnerships that will help to carry the re-envisioning and systemic change work forward. There is an urgent and critical need for STEM I&E to engage diverse populations and create opportunity for the energy, creativity, and contributions of all Americans. This conference award centers the lived experiences of marginalized populations, helps the field learn where gaps and barriers are most persistent and how they are experienced by people from underrepresented populations, and creates opportunities to think differently about systemic constraints through research. Questions that will be explored include: What values need to be enacted within/outside of the ecosystem? What structural changes are needed? What resources are needed to enact the vision? Small working groups will convene in the months following the conference workshop to identify and further develop five actionable recommendations for moving the vision forward. Anticipated outcomes are an initial framework that identifies attributes of an inclusive STEM I&E sector, development of a series of co-created strategic recommendations, published action agendas describing a rationale and implementation steps for each recommendation, and a workplan for further exploration and implementation of additional strategies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.