Samani (second from left) and the panellists at the inaugural ‘WE Empower’ of the US Missions to the UAE at the Sharjah Research and Technology Innovation Park on Wednesday.

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Many are going to be interested to indulge in S-T-E-M if they were encouraged to link these up with their interests from basic education.

The more it would get more interesting and the more the global knowledge-based economy would be steaming if another E for Entrepreneurship, another M for Medicine, and the A for the Arts were thoroughly implanted in the otherwise boring – for some – STEM – to be known as STEEAMM, a spark of which as well are the valued values embedded within the basic unit of the society – the family – and which permeate within associations and communities. 

These are from Dr. Jeannice Fairrer Samani, thought by her parents and grandparents to become a lawyer; but, is now not only the chief executive officer but is the owner of the “global business intelligence manufacturing and consulting firm that integrates Business and IT Engineering” – the Fairrer Samani Group – in her home state of California, Michigan and Hong Kong.

In the UAE for the September 17 to 19 inaugural  “Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Women’s Economic Empowerment Summit (WE Empower) of the United States Missions to the United Arab Emirates held in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, the US State Department delegate to Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East for Girls & Women in STEM, said that while there is yet the dearth of women in STEM, ‘it is critical for yes, not only girls and women but also boys and men; everyone, to engage in this field.’

Samani was interviewed on the sidelines of the September 18 “Role of Women in Science & Research in the MENA Region” held at the Soilab of the Sharjah Research and Technology Innovation Park which was graced by USA Consul General in Dubai and the Northern Emirates Robert Raines.

She pointed out on the addition of another E, another M and the A to STEM: “I separate the Entrepreneurship as its own entity and thus the E2 because it can be very technical and integration is necessary to create, innovate and to build the economy.”

“A knowledge-based economy whereby you are learning. But, you are learning with the purpose to actively develop and create the economy to support the economy because we run on economy. Everything; from education to technology to science, whatever; all these have their own economy and within it, it is actually all aggregated in order to run the society,” she also said.

Samani, given several opportunities throughout her career to also teach pupils and high school students Mathematics, Calculus, and Trigonometry ‘in various schools,’ in her service as an adviser, as she also was a professor for 20 years for post-graduate students at the Santa Clara University and Menlo College in California, and at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, added: “Just to think about. If we are looking at STEEAMM and you are building in your entrepreneurship whereby you are developing businesses, it is very important. Medicine is aside. It is science yet it is a specialised humanistic science.”

“So, in order to make young people to be in the engagement as a whole in STEM or in STEEAMM is to allow them to experience various aspects of life. Sports teams. Classes. Put them in a room and allow them to pick up different toys, experiments, drawings, mechanical items, computers. They will be able to adapt it into potentially what could be their next innovation,” emphasised Samani, among the panellists at the “Breaking the Tech Glass Ceiling – Artificial Intelligence & Gaming.”

She was glad that while it was her younger brother who was easily given access to the robotics laboratory of their father at the Silicon Valley, she took the risk of enlisting in the ‘after-school classes’ that taught her the specialised basic computing programme languages, leading her to take the uncharted path by girls her age.

Samani stressed during the interview the significance of education that instils in pupils and students the discipline to decipher and analyse while it is a must that all educators provide their mentees with all the support systems for exploration and letting them own and grow with their concepts.