When the folks from the Supercomputing Challenge approached us requesting that we help host tours for their event, we immediately jumped at the opportunity. The Challenge has storied beginnings. Back in 1990 it was an avenue to provide high school students with access to supercomputing power for their independent research projects. This is accomplished through the hard work and collaboration between organizations such as LANL, Sandia National Laboratories, UNM, Cray Research, and the Santa Fe Institute. Since then, the Challenge has grown to include teams from middle and high schools all over the state.

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In addition to showing them our facilities and discussing the process particular to building touch tables and walls, along with custom software, we discussed pathways to careers in STEM and STEAM. Our diverse team of speakers presented on topics such as developing in 3D environments, problem-solving as a team, industrial design and prototyping, parametric modeling, computer assembly, and quality assurance.

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We were thrilled to see so many young learners tackling hard problems using math, science, and a lot of creativity. The future of businesses like ours rely on the curiosity and perseverance of new generations interested in how to push the envelope of human-computer interaction.

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It’s been a busy month of advocacy and community engagement for Ideum. In addition to hosting the Supercomputing Challenge, we were happy to sponsor both the March for Science Santa Fe and the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty Toast to Kim Posich.