US President Barack Obama on Monday launched over USD 240 million in new commitments for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education program at the fifth annual White House Science Fair.

A White House news release said: “The new private sector commitments are designed to inspire and prepare more girls and boys — especially those from underrepresented groups — to excel in the STEM fields. With the commitments being made today, the President’s campaign called “Educate to Innovate” has resulted in more than USD 1 billion in financial and in-kind support for STEM programs.”

The new philanthropic effort will be led by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Simons Foundation.

The organizations will unveil a Faculty Scholars Program with nearly USD 150 million over five years.

The program intends to support the early career scientists with valuable resources as well as interactions and proper mentoring in an initiative to empower recipients in the STEM education program.

“The effort aim at encouraging students to pursue new and exciting research directions, to ask new questions, and do the types of high-risk, high-reward research that can lead to scientific breakthroughs,” the White House said in a press release.

The USD 90 million effort, which is called “Let Everyone Dream”, will primarily focus on encouraging as well as inspiring more students, especially from underrepresented groups, to make a remarkable career in STEM subjects.

Some of the major components of the initiative include a media campaign that will be focused on youths and their families for the expansion of STEM opportunities for the underrepresented people and encouraging their association with higher education.

The participating companies in the “Let Everyone Dream” initiative are: Motorola, Epix, Televisa, 3M, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), City University of New York and others.

List of other initiatives:

• A commitment from universities and colleges for training 20,000 engineers to take on challenges of 21st century.
• A competition from the Department of Education worth USD 25 million seeking new media with themes of literacy and science in order to encourage student exploration.
• A coalition of CEOs eyeing expansion of effective Science, Technology, Engineering and Math programs to an additional 150 million students this year.

The interested people can avail more information about the White House Science Fair at whitehouse.gov/science-fair.