By Tangerine Clarke
Guyanese-born, Karen
Abrams, the MBA executive
director of STEMGuyana, said
women make up close to 50 percent
of the population, yet they
are woefully underrepresented
in STEM careers as the world
has moved aggressively to technology
oriented businesses and
economies.
A graduate of Howard University
and California State University
at San Francisco, Abrams
who has spent more than 10
years as a technology executive
in corporate America working
for Atlanta based Mindspring
Networks, and later, Southern
California based, Earthlink Networks,
added that thousands of
jobs will go unfilled, meaning,
economies will not be able to
benefit from the ideas, creativity
and contributions of women
who would not profit equitably
from higher paying careers in
STEM.
During a recent interview
with Caribbean Life, Abrams
who initially studied business
and held a position in corporate
Caribbean L 16 ife, MARCH 5-11, 2021
America with a technology
company, said she benefited
from the aggressive growth
of the firm and learned about
technology and every aspect of
the business during her 11-year
career.
Abrams, a recipient of the
prestigious Guyana 2018 Golden
Arrow Of Achievement award
for her work that raised the
country’s technology profile by
fielding teams at international
robotics competitions in Washington
and the United Arab
Emirates, was intensely curious
about how the mostly white
people around her were able
to prepare themselves for their
careers in technology.
“I studied and implemented
what I learned with my children,
my Dekalb County community,
then with the children
of Guyana,” she said, “adding
that more than 20,000 students
have benefited from “our programs
across Guyana.”
“Whether our NGSA grade
6 app, our summer camps, our
club training programs, our
robotics national teams, our
STEM clubs, our (21) learning
pods for vulnerable children or
our hundreds of outreach programs,
our impact is pretty significant.”
“We recently completed an
online survey from a weighted
sample of parents across Guyana
and STEMGuyana’s name
recognition was nearly 70 percent.
People are aware of us,
they know of our contributions
and many of them would like
their children to join our programs.
I would say we’ve been
pretty successful,” said Abrams.
“Sadly in Guyana, too many
leaders in both the private and
public sector do not have a good
understanding of the benefits
of our work. Others see us as
competitors, which is strange
because we introduced a brand
new space into Guyana. We have
made peace with the notion that
there will always be detractors
but we also have a few strong
supporters in the public and private
sectors,” she assured.
Director of STEMGuyana, Karen Abrams. Christian Abrams
“We are also strongly supported
by parents and probably
most importantly the Guyana
Diaspora. Our supporters
always come through for the
children of Guyana. We owe our
existence to them.”
However, her concern is for
the thousands of children from
vulnerable families who have
been under schooled for more
than a year. “We fear many of
these children will drop out and
will ultimately join the ranks of
low paid workers or the unemployed
in Guyana.”
Director of STEMGuyana
impacts many students
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