CTIC STEAM: Fostering innovation from an early age by boosting STEAM skills

The project stems from CTIC's commitment to working with the education system in response to new social demands, which require schools to prepare younger generations to face the social, professional, and personal challenges arising from an environment in constant transformation. It was aimed at promoting innovative learning environments through the use of technology, as well as at developing critical thinking and the responsible use of information and communication technologies.

The learning pathway, flexible and adaptable to any educational level, addressed four purposes of education:

• Cultural: enabling students to understand their own culture and respect different ones.
• Social: fostering civic participation and social innovation from an early age.
• Personal: having students discover and strengthen their skills and abilities, closely tied to eight soft skills: curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, civic-mindedness, communication, calm, collaboration, and empathy.
• Economic: having schoolchildren become responsible and economically independent people when they enter the labor market.

CTIC STEAM was structured around the following areas:

• Emerging technologies: the pathways focused on the technologies that would shape the working future of younger generations, linked to CTIC's areas of specialization, so that students would become developers of content related to data intelligence, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, or virtual and augmented reality, among others.
• Technology entrepreneurship: as a cross-cutting element, entrepreneurship activities were carried out using agile methodologies and creativity techniques, from a social perspective and promoting the circular economy.
• Responsible use and female talent: throughout the pathway, the responsible use of technology and critical thinking were addressed, and the role of women in STEAM was emphasized as a way to promote female talent from an early age.

CTIC carried out the project with its own funds, focusing on the school guidance network and teachers, key players in developing STEAM skills. It was aimed at the whole educational community: teachers, families, children, and young people from age 8.