STEM Advocacy Conference of Texas (SACOT)
The STEM Advocacy Conference of Texas, started and originally founded by 2468, is a high school-based program that brings together like-minded students throughout Texas to advocate for increased government funding and support for STEM-aligned educational activities.
FRC 2468 started SACOT, with the goal is to support and encourage students to advocate for STEM-related legislation in Texas at both the State and local level of government. In the fall of 2016, we recruited and selected 12 other teams to join the SACOT Founder’s Conference held in October of 2016. By providing resources and guidance, SACOT creates a community of high school students who believe that they an make a difference in STEM education. SACOT has held two conferences at the Texas Capitol in Austin, creating a collective platform and teaching advocacy skills to students. With the SACOT platform and new advocacy skills, students have been able to convincingly talk to their local government and school board about STEM education. SACOT has now grown to over 119 teams and 982 members from all across Texas.
Conferences
SACOT LAW: Training and Debrief
On February 27th, we hosted the Training portion of our SACOT LAW event where 2468 SACOT members and the other founding/key SACOT teams trained attending FIRST students on how to approach and successfully advocate to legislators on our chosen platform. We also assigned teams to a legislator that they can meet with on their own during the 3 week time period in between the Training and Debrief portions of the event.
On March 27, we hosted the SACOT LAW: Debrief, during which students shared their experiences from our 39 legislator meetings. The event gave students the opportunity for students to meet with invited STEM, government, and industry professionals and these professionals interacted with FIRST students during an allocated time period for networking and discussion.
On February 15th, 2020, we hosted the FIRST State Advocacy Conference through FIRST Updates Now. Teams from across the nation shared about how they advocate for STEM in their state and gave advice on how to start your own advocacy initiative.
On November 21, 2019, we hosted our SACOT Summit at the Texas State Capitol. We had a panel, but with a twist! The first half of the event featured a traditional panel of industry professionals, legislators, and policy makers who answered questions from an audience of STEM students. The twist came in from the latter half of the panel, when a select number of students switched with the professional panel to answer questions from the curious adults.
On February 18, 2019, we hosted SACOT on the Hill at the Texas State Capitol. 60 students from 10 FIRST teams around the state came to have a total of 31 meetings with their local legislators. We had a Robot Open House event, where legislators and staffers were invited to come see FLL, FTC, and FRC robots in the Capitol. The SACOT platform this legislative session included advocating for HB 341, increasing TIMA, and promoting FIRST.
For our second Annual Conference, we chose to host a virtual conference in order to reach a larger audience in December 2018. Our virtual conference had three in-person conference watch locations called “nodes” that participated in the conference. The Austin node was hosted by FRC 2468, Houston by VorTX, and San Antonio by Broncbots. We had 120 local attendees and over 300 online viewers. Our Keynote Speakers included Representative Donna Howard, Caroline Joiner, Piyuush Bhargava (FIRST in Texas Board Member), and Don Bossi (President of FIRST).
SACOT Annual Conference
After the Founder’s Conference, we recruited over 250 new members to SACOT, and invited them to our inaugural Annual Conference, sponsored by VEX and FIRST. The conference took place at the beginning of the 2017 Texas Legislative Session, allowing us to create and advocate our first SACOT Platform. The first SACOT platform involved three major parts: Legislative Agenda, School Board Initiative, and Corporate Connection Program. During this Texas Legislative session, SACOT supported HB 395, spread the word about UIL and FIRST Robotics, and maintained relationships with legislators. The January Conference included keynote speakers Ray Almgren, Representative Cecil Bell, and Representative Paul Workman. We had Michael Blair (Legislative Director for Michael Roberts), Representative Donna Howard, Caroline Joiner (Executive Director for TechNet), and Tom Leonard (Superintendent of Eanes ISD) on our panel.
SACOT Founders Conference
As we developed SACOT, we realized we couldn’t do it alone. In order to create an organization that gives all high-school students in Texas a voice in STEM education, we had to recruit students from all over the state. We partnered with our “founding teams” including: FRC 118 Robonauts, FRC 148 Robowranglers, FRC 418 LASA Robotics, FRC 1477 Texas Torque, FRC 2158 AusTINcans, FRC 2881 LadyCans, FRC 3310 Blackhawks, FRC 3841 Broncbots, FRC 4335 Metallic Clouds, FTC 6299 Quad X. These teams were integrated into SACOT at the Founder’s Conference in October 2016. At this conference, we educated the founding teams about how to advocate to legislators. We recruited other FIRST teams in order to reach our ultimate goal of spreading SACOT and STEM throughout all of Texas. Our keynote speakers included Ray Almgren (Chairman of FIRST in Texas), John Howard (Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Dell), Evan Smith (CEO of Texas Tribune), and Representatives Donna Howard and Paul Workman.
Events
SACOT Ask Me Anything Series
The SACOT AMA Series aims to engage with members of SACOT as well as outside audiences. So far, we have hosted 3 AMAs and have brought on guest speakers such as Patrick Felty from First in Texas, 2468 alumni and Nasa engineer Jake Cooper, as well as Dan Mantz from the REC Foundation.
SACOT Gives Back at ClubZ
For the past 2 years, SACOT has partnered with an afterschool program for underserved children, ClubZ, to provide their first introduction to STEM. We have hosted 11 ClubZ sessions for over 30 children in Austin for the past 2 years. We have engaged students by providing access to our Robox Kits.
Expanding to Other States
One of our main goals of SACOT is to inspire other states to replicate our state-wide model. Currently, we are helping Arizona and Pennsylvania, but we hope to keep expanding!
FACTA
FACTA stands for the FIRST Arizona Conference for Technology Advocacy. SACOT’s president was invited to their first conference in Arizona to speak about the structure and organization of state-wide advocacy organizations. Their mission as a student body is to showcase to their community the impact STEM has had on their lives, and how it is needed for the future growth of Arizona. Steve Sanghi, CEO and COB of Microchip Technology, Inc. and co-chair of the Arizona FIRST® Planning Committee, were keynote speakers at their conference.
PACT
PACT, the Pennsylvania Advocacy Conference for Technology, is another new state-wide advocacy conference that SACOT helped start.
Campaigns
HB 244
HB 244 is a Texas House Bill sponsored by Representative Mary Gonzalez which aims to establish a grant program to promote teacher certification and professional development in computer science and related technology fields. The pictures below show SACOT members advocating for HB 244 virtually.
SACOT On The Clock
SACOT on the Clock allocates ten minutes once every month to SACOT activities. Designed to encourage SACOT engagement for regular members, SACOT on the Clock is a time-efficient and structured method of participation. The Executive Committee releases a schedule with a ten-minute activity planned for each month. The goal is to have every SACOT team/member to participate in robotics class at school, meetings after school, or at home.
SACOT On Tour
SACOT On Tour takes the place of our annual conference and is during even-numbered years. This way, we can effectively use our time to directly benefit underserved communities around Texas. SACOT On Tour gives SACOT members the opportunity to not only travel to underprivileged schools and speak with students but also to set up and attend meetings with their local legislators to push for STEM education. Students in communities with a lack of STEM education can reap the benefits of RoBox camps that SACOT hosts and the new opportunities SACOT brings.
HB 395
HB 395 is a Texas house bill sponsored by Representative Cecil Bell Jr. relating to the career and technology education allotment and the essential knowledge, skills, and applications of technology education. This bill would reclassify technology application curriculum (TAC) courses as career and technology education (CTE) courses, allocating more funds for STEM courses in Texas such as Computer Science. In the pictures below, SACOT members are advocating for HB 395 in legislator meetings.
