National Inventors Hall of Fame Initiative Spurs Kids to Choose ‘My Innovation Icon’
Date February 20, 2019
Est. Reading Time 3 mins
Identifying Career Role Models Inspires Children to Explore Their Inner Inventor
NORTH CANTON, Ohio – Feb. 20, 2019 — Everyone knows superheroes are cool, but now they are even cooler, because they are helping young students chart a path to become innovators and inventors.
A new initiative from the National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF), My Innovation Icon, introduces participants in NIHF’s Camp Invention® program to The Innovation Force® — NIHF Inductees portrayed as a team of powerful, inspiring superheroes.
“The National Inventors Hall of Fame is on a mission,” said NIHF CEO Michael Oister. “By 2020, we want 100 percent of our Camp Invention program participants to identify a world-class innovator as their career role model — their own Innovation Icon.”
Each member of The Innovation Force is a NIHF Inductee who has directly influenced the Camp Invention program. Through three decades of collaborating with these accomplished inventors, NIHF has developed a true understanding of the invention process and its benefits — including creative problem solving, collaboration, entrepreneurship and persistence — skills that will help children lead more successful and fulfilling lives, regardless of their specific career paths.
“Only the National Inventors Hall of Fame can introduce children to the proven invention process and help them develop valuable life skills through a direct connection to the world’s greatest innovators,” Oister said.
Recent studies illustrate campaigns such as My Innovation Icon are needed:
- A United States Patent and Trademark Office study — “Progress and Potential: A Profile of Women Inventors on U.S. Patents” (2019) — reported that only 4 percent of U.S. patents name women-only inventors over the past decade.
- An Opportunity Insights study — ”Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation” (2017) — noted that when children are introduced to innovators at an early age, they are more likely to be innovative in their adult lives.
- A Lumina Foundation study — “Finding Your Workforce: Latinos in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math” (2015) — found that African-Americans and Latinos each made up just 6 percent of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workforce, despite the fact that these two groups make up nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population.
Innovation- and STEM-based programming such as Camp Invention are important tools to introduce America’s youth to innovators and careers they can relate to and see themselves in, Oister said.
“As children get to know our Innovation Force, they will see that inventors are uniquely inspiring career role models. They are successful, fascinating and fun individuals to whom kids can genuinely relate,” he said. “These role models will encourage children to tap into their own innovation superpowers, now and in the future.”
Parents can get their children started on their mission to find their Innovation Icon at invent.org/innovation-icon; for more information on NIHF’s Camp Invention program, or to register for a 2019 camp, visit invent.org/camp.