Presenter: Kara Christianson, Vice President
www.iridescentlearning.org

• Reducing the achievement gap
• Identifying factors that will increase parental involvement in underserved communities
• Increasing the public's problem solving skills
• Developing a powerful program that helps engineers publicize cutting-edge research

Iridescent trains engineers to bring cutting-edge science to underserved children AND their parents. We equip these communities to set and achieve ambitious goals. We believe that if children interact with passionate role models, they will be inspired to work towards a high level of achievement. This vision and persistence is nurtured by introducing children to the most exciting problems that researchers grapple with. Our goal is to be a powerful, rapidly growing movement of engineers teaching underserved children in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and New York. We want every child to think not just, "that was so cool!" but also "Wow! I know how to change the world!"

We need engineers to volunteer as teachers, links to university engineering programs and $150,000 to fund our next year of expanded operations, training 300 engineers and reaching over 4,000 children.