STEAM for Social Good is a IEEE TryEngineering funded project that commenced on Sept 3, 2022 in collaboration with IEEE Education Society Kerala Section and AMMACHI Labs, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. The ten-day STEAM coding camp is in full swing and to be followed by a two-day Makeathon on applying a design thinking approach towards UN Sustainable Development Goals. The coding camp is happening in hybrid mode in Kochi, Kerala India. Researchers at AMMACHI Labs, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham have been recognized by IEEE pre-university team as IEEE STEM Ambassadors.

Since the beginning of 2022, nine mentors from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham have mentored 84 children from grades 6-12 to go through the engineering design process from identifying societal problems to developing and testing innovative technological solutions. The 3.5 month long training and mentorship programme prepares student teams from three schools to participate in the ATL Marathon innovation challenge conducted by Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog. This mentorship program was part of AMMACHI Lab’s larger initiative called The Second Foundation which was started in 2016 and IEEE’s pre-university STEM initiative called TryEngineering.

IEEE selected Gayathri Manikutty as STEM Ambassador and the team received pre-university STEM grant funding for their proposal titled ‘STEAM for Social Good’, a 10-day training program plus a 2-day makeathon for school children on social problem solving for UN SDGs. The team has begun conducting events for school students with IEEE Education Society members of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and Kerala Section. Through the outreach programs organized by the STEM ambassadors, IEEE volunteers from AMMACHI Labs are empowering the next generation of technology innovators.