Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom Corp.’s corporate foundation said Tuesday it’s set to give $6 million over six years to launch a middle school competition geared to promote science, technology, engineering and math for students and teachers.
The foundation is sponsoring a program dubbed the Broadcom Masters, which stands for math, applied science, technology and engineering for rising stars.
The program is working with the Society for Science & the Public, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that puts on nationwide science fairs and other academic competitions at the junior high and high school levels.
The communications chipmaker is putting its name and foundation money behind a nationwide contest among middle school students.
Some 7,500 students who compete in nationwide science fairs put on by the Society for Science & the Public will be culled to a group of 300 semifinalists.
From the semifinalist group, some 30 Broadcom Masters will be picked to meet in Washington in the fall of next year.
The Broadcom Foundation is set to pay for the trip and related learning activities for the students.
“We are delighted to partner with SSP to inspire students to envision careers that can be theirs if they stay engaged in mathematics, science and engineering throughout high school and college,” Broadcom Chief Executive Scott McGregor said.
McGregor is also the president of the Broadcom Foundation.
The competition ends in awards and prizes, including a $25,000 education grant from Broadcom cofounder and Chief Technical Officer Henry Samueli and his wife Susan.
Together they give via the Samueli Foundation, which gives millions to causes in education, alternative medicine, the arts and in the Jewish community.
“We wanted to impact the defining moment when kids either stay with or turn away from science and math,” said Paula Golden, executive director of the Broadcom Foundation and director of community affairs for the chipmaker. “We narrowed the field to the middle school. A science fair is the first time that most kids think for themselves and learn about what they like. It’s often the first time they get to bring their math and science skills to bear.”
The Broadcom Foundation was started in 2009 with some $50 million to put toward education causes with a focus on promoting science, technology, engineering and math for students and teachers.
McGregor, as a student, was a semi-finalist in one of the early Society for Science & the Public-affiliated competitions, Golden said.
“He was acknowledged at a young age and took a turn toward science and math,” she said.
Broadcom is the county’s biggest chipmaker, with yearly sales of about $6 billion and a recent market value of $17 billion.
It makes chips that go into computers, cell phones and consumer electronics, among other devices.
