The Solve for Tomorrow Contest Starts Strong with the Help of Employee Ambassadors

Teams have been built. States have been assigned. The mission – to boost entries for the 2015-2016 Solve for Tomorrow (SFT) Contest – has been accepted. And the SFT Employee Ambassadors are off!

SFT is a national competition designed to boost interest and proficiency in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) among U.S. public school students. SFT challenges students in grades 6-12 to show how STEM can be used to help improve their communities.

For the 2015-2016 program year, 210 Samsung employees from various U.S. offices volunteered to be SFT Employee Ambassadors. Samsung employees love friendly competition, especially when the end result is for the greater good.

“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to give back to the community and see what the future holds for us through the eyes of these brilliant kids,” said Frank Mantz of Samsung Business, who served as an Employee Ambassador at the SFT National Finalist Pitch Event in March. “Some people may think it will take up too much time in their already busy schedule, and it does take a certain amount of dedication, but what you get back in the end makes up for any time lost [by] tenfold.”

Mantz hosted the Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy from Erie, Pennsylvania during perhaps the most exciting event of the year-long program. Students from the top 15 schools across the country converged at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City to present and defend their projects in front of a live panel of judges.

The team’s amazing vertical gardens project, which addressed both the lack of fresh produce and the lack  of horizontal space to grow them in their urban community, earned the school more than $135,000 of technology and other prizes and a Solve for Tomorrow National Winner title.

So far more than 3,000 schools have entered with the same goal in mind. But with just  a few days before the entry period closes, the SFT Employee Ambassadors are doing all they can to make sure more schools have the opportunity to win the technology that is so critical to modern-day STEM curriculum.

“We had more than 3,000 schools enter last year,” said Bill Welker, manager of the Solve for Tomorrow Contest. “We’re aiming to beat that record and need everyone’s help to spread the word.”

Teams like Mantz’s are certainly doing all they can to do just that. After all, his teammates Rose Luppino and Gabriel Hanauer are veteran ambassadors who have had the distinction of being part of the winning team to gather the most entries for the past two years.

“We have to put the investment in our kids to make sure that they have the tools to obtain the knowledge that they need,” said Rose Luppino of Samsung Sales.

For more information on the Solve for Tomorrow Contest, please visit samsung.com/solve.