You Have Voted and The Verdict Is In!
We have a winner for the Start Doing For STEM Contest.

Congratulations to Brian Lloyd of Holly Springs. His logo design with the branding tagline of “STEM: Changing The World One Problem At A Time” received more than half of the 70 total votes received in the contest. Brian, who is the Art Director at SAS World Headquarters in Cary, will receive a WRAL Local Tech Wire Prize Pack for his efforts and also shared some insight on the inspiration behind his idea.

“I wanted to create a concise and clear design that would work as a solid foundation for all program materials,” he explained. “The acronym for the program (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) lends itself to a number of positive things. STEM can literally mean the stem of a leaf, which leads to the idea of growth. That’s what the program is about … growing, learning and the knowledge that can be returned to the world.”

The object of the contest was to develop a logo and branding concept to coincide with a national media campaign this summer boosting STEM initiatives. This may have been just a simple and fun contest, but this is a real issue that needs our help immediately.

Brian said he believes that investing in our science and math instructors will lead to a more motivated and knowledgeable student base. He added, “Getting the students interested and excited about these fields is how programs like STEM will succeed. By building up the awareness of this program, our country will remain globally competitive in these crucial areas of education.”

Thank you all for your wonderful ideas and participating. At NGC, we are excited about the possibilities of promoting the importance of STEM education, especially by means of user-generated content and graphics. Brian agreed that our little contest was “an excellent way to get awareness” and explained that “by having a contest which required participation from the public, there was greater interaction between designers and voters. This, in turn, drove people to the site. They were then able to learn more about what the program represents and make an informed decision in their voting process. ”

The next contest, whenever we decide to do another one, we will certainly take into consideration the feedback many of you provided. One of the top reoccurring comments was that the voting process could have been done differently since some people had a difficult time figuring out how to vote for their choice. Next time, we’ll develop some actual voting buttons or something on the website, to make life a little easier and user friendly. Once again, thanks for the feedback on how we can do it better next time.
 
Congratulations once again to Brian Lloyd for winning the Start Doing For STEM Contest. Be on the lookout for the next stage of this ongoing STEM campaign as we continue to work on additional awareness and getting the message out there in many different formats to as many people as possible. If you have some additional ideas to share regarding next steps and mapping the way, let us know by participating in the Innovation Exchange.

Like I said before in previous posts, this is the just beginning.