Awards

IU Indianapolis Spirit of Philanthropy Award - 1998

About SME Education Foundation

The SME Education Foundation was created in response to a need identified by the business community. In the years after World War II, the country experienced a surge in demand for people with the technical skill to work with the new technologies developed during the war, such as advances in auto design and communications. Faced with this requirement, major corporations quickly zeroed in on a serious problem: the lack of degree-holding engineers graduating from the nation’s community colleges and universities with knowledge about the total manufacturing environment.

The SME Education Foundation was founded soon afterward in 1979. SME pledged to underwrite the operation of the SME Education Foundation and arranged for all monies contributed by corporations and individuals to be used for course development, research and scholarship grants.

The SME Education Foundation’s mission is to prepare youth for advanced manufacturing careers through outreach programs encouraging students to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), with a particular focus on technology and engineering.