WCET and GlobalMindED Announce Digital Inclusion Award Winner

WCET and GlobalMindED are proud to announce the winner of the first Digital Inclusion Award as Dr. Nader Vadiee, Ph.D., Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. This award is a unique recognition of an individual, organization or program that has shown significant impact on first generation learner populations regarding advancing the digital inclusion of students.

Boulder, CO – The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) and GlobalMindED are proud to announce the winner of the first Digital Inclusion Award as Dr. Nader Vadiee, Ph.D., Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. The Digital Inclusion Award is a unique recognition of an individual, organization or program that has shown significant impact on first generation learner populations regarding increasing digital inclusion. Digital Inclusion is not about infrastructure, it is about what learners DO with the infrastructure to harvest the bounty of innovative ideas and perspectives in the hearts and minds of first generation learners.

Dr. Vadiee’s work promotes digital inclusion by advancing the interests of Native American and Hispanic students in Information Technology and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Dr. Vadiee and his associates have developed an immersive robotics program to provide an enriching learning experience to interest students in STEM Fields. Their program participants have had a significant increase in enrollment and completion in STEM or IT courses. The Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute has seen a significant increase in graduation rates in their Pre-Engineering Associate degrees, followed by continuation at the university level. Their programming involves working with Native American-serving higher schools and feeder middle schools.

The Digital Inclusion Award will be awarded to Dr. Vadiee at the GlobalMindED Conference June 21-23, 2017 in Denver, CO.