How DiscoverSTEM Helped One Mother Cultivate Her Children’s Innovative Skills

Bola Oluwaji’s three science-and-technology-oriented children each have their special interests, things that drive and motivate them.

Temitope, 16, plans a career that will mix finance with technology in the growing fintech arena. 

Tomisin, 14, loved to tinker with Legos at a young age and now aims to become an engineer. 

And curious 8-year-old Tobi plans to be a doctor. “He says it without a blink of an eye,” Oluwaji says.

Although Oluwaji’s children have differing ideas about what professions they want to pursue as adults, they share something in common: All are interested in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) and all have been helped by DiscoverSTEM, a program that encourages young people to think in innovative ways and conjure new inventions and ideas.

“All of them are driven by creativity and innovation,” Oluwaji says. “The little one loves to explore a lot. He asks so many questions. So inquisitive.”

The family’s path to DiscoverSTEM came about out of the mother’s desire to encourage the development of her children’s innate talents and interests. 

Oluwaji worried that her children’s fascination with creative and innovative ideas could wane if not nurtured. She scoured the Internet for programs where her children and their skills could flourish. That’s how she came across DiscoverSTEM, a program that got its start in 2016 when co-founder Mirza Faisan, an aerospace scientist and inventor, was invited to evaluate students’ work at a global innovation competition conducted at Kennedy Space Center and the International Science & Engineering Fair. DiscoverSTEM sounded interesting but Oluwaji wanted to learn more.

“I did a deep dive into it,” she says.

After reading about the organization, Oluwaji gave Faisan a call and, satisfied with the results of that conversation, she soon was filling out applications.

Just as she hoped, Oluwaji says, her children have thrived in DiscoverSTEM, working with other students to solve problems in creative and inventive ways. She especially appreciates the collaborative approach that DiscoverSTEM promotes, teaching the young people to work together on teams to achieve their goals. The skills that are honed through such interaction and cooperation are critically needed in any field of endeavor, she says. 

“In the world we live in, we are seeing some of those soft skills fast disappearing,” she says. “Children need to be in an environment and be involved in a program or something like that that can help them cultivate and nurture whatever gift is in them. That will make them become problem solvers.”

She has watched with satisfaction as DiscoverSTEM’s influence on her children has grown, providing evidence that her decision to seek out such a program was warranted. Oluwaji says Temitope, Tomisin, and Tobi are always thinking about problem-solving and finding solutions, whether as individuals or as part of a team. Their leadership abilities also have grown because of their interaction with others.

Oluwaji is a work-life coach and consultant. In that role, she often speaks with parents about the need to be more present in their children’s lives so they can raise a generation that will have a positive impact on society and create solutions the world needs to overcome its problems. 

Once a parent discovers what it is that a child is passionate about and has a gift for, it would be a disservice to the child not to try to cultivate that talent, she says. That doesn’t mean the child’s interest has to be related to STEM fields, as it was for her three children. It could be a passion for writing, for art, for theater, or for any number of other things. The idea is to do whatever the parent can to allow the child to explore those interests and grow in them.

Oluwaji recalls hearing a quote often attributed to Thomas Edison. Asked by a reporter what the greatest invention was, Edison is said to have replied, “The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child.”

“Children come into this world as great problem solvers,” Oluwaji says. “The imagination of a child has to be cultivated.”