Girls (and boys!) bring their inventions to the White House

By Taylor Garland

Earlier today, President Obama hosted students for the annual White House Science Fair. At the Alliance for American Manufacturing, we get so excited  when we hear about kids making things! This year’s Fair focused on girls and women who are excelling in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Diedre Carillo, an exhibitor at this year's fair, helped design and build an electric vehicle. That's very cool. You know what’s even cooler? As a member of her high school’s Southwest Engineering Team, Diedre is the driver of the team’s Dragon 1 vehicle:

The president also announced new steps in his Educate to Innovate campaign, a new $35 million Department of Education competition that will train teachers in STEM education, expand STEM AmeriCorps to teach 18,000 low-income students, and launch a national STEM mentoring effort.

The White House clearly understands how important it is to incubate that kind of technological curiosity in kids. That's a good thing. After all, America won't have much of an industrial base in the future without the people to power it!