A Winners’ Circle XR instructor works with a student on a project.

R.I. nonprofit expands STEAM opportunities for students of color

A Rhode-Island based nonprofit is providing underserved students with an opportunity to build, code and design their own futures in the innovation economy.

Winners’ Circle XR Academy has partnered with more than eight schools and since its founding in 2019 has served some 1,500 students. Since 2023, it have raised over $200,000 through grants, sponsorships and community support.

With a focus on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics), some of its annual signature events include the MindBlast XR Hackathon and Game Jam, which provide real-world, problem-solving experiences for students.

This month the organization partnered with the Rhode Island Department of Education to celebrate its annual STEAM Month with a series of hands-on, pop-up events across Providence, Pawtucket and Warwick.

Founder and Executive Director Juan Rodriguez talked about the importance of this partnership.

“These pop-ups consist of us having various STEAM booths where students and families can come in and interact with different STEAM activities. Ours is more focused on our after-school programs, so we have a drone booth, we have an e-sports booth, we have a robotics booth and we have a XR technology booth, which is an umbrella term for augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality, where students can experience any of these technologies,” he said.

Rodriguez also talked about why STEAM Month matters to his program and his partners at the Rhode Island Department of Education.

“STEAM is everything around us. It’s science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics. I believe any career that we step into touches upon any of those key subjects,” he said. “I get excited about the science. Some students get excited about the technology, but it just is an exciting way to introduce this to students and get them excited about learning.”

Rodriguez also talked about how hands-on STEAM learning connects to career pathways in tech and science for Rhode Island youth.

“Having a hands-on experience [that] students typically wouldn’t see in their spaces allows them to think critical[ly] and to be more creative and get excited about learning,” said Rodriguez. “Allowing students to not only become consumers of content, but to allow themselves to become content creators, is empowering in so many different ways.”

Rodriguez also shared some of the challenges in expanding STEAM access for low-income families and students of color, which include trying to show stakeholders the importance of the pivot toward becoming a more technology-driven world, especially in the workforce.

He also noted the rapidly increasing use of artificial intelligence on a global scale.

“Instead of playing catch up, we need to be ahead of the game and start taking coding just as serious[ly] as we take a foreign language. It is definitely something that we need to start pushing towards more, whether it be pushing policies or working with more families…[and] educators. …

Hopefully, we can make that shift soon and start getting more students of color to go in this direction,” he said.

In 2026, Winners Circle XR plans to pivot and increase its focus on career readiness and workforce development. Rodriguez said students will have the opportunity to become Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-certified to fly drones, along with credited certification to host eSports tournaments.

“We [are also] trying to find some different ways that we can expand the eSports community in Rhode Island and get more students involved. If there’s not a team at their school, we definitely have the equipment, so that they can come to our space…especially the underserved community, the students that look like myself, the Black and brown students that need the most support,” he said.

Rodriguez said he sees a growing demand for tech workforce development in New England, which includes finding different ways to explore and study the ocean with technology. He recently facilitated a workshop with students about how drone aviation is being used to study the ocean and can provide different solutions.

“[After we] watched the different videos, students were excited to see that you can fly a drone over a whale, collect some snot…use that snot, bring it into the lab, see [and] determine the health of that whale…based on that snot that you collected with the drone,” he said. “We started exploring different ways that you can study the ocean with these drones, and they came with some great solutions.”

The academy blends emerging tech with mentorship — with intentionality. This means partnering with other technology schools or colleges that have engineering programs and recruiting students of color who understand the challenges his middle and high school students are facing.

“[They can help our students] understand the pathway, understand the programs and provide them with the mentorship that they need, [even if] it’s not [about] the program, perhaps it might be something personal…but we’re definitely finding exciting ways to make that happen,” he said.

Rodriguez said he believes early exposure to technology is important for youth.

“Early exposure to tech…it’s going to spark their curiosity. Once you spark that curiosity, that’s when you ignite a student to get excited about learning, to start exploring more…to start becoming more creative. [This] gives them an outlet to channel themselves in a positive way. And once they have that [along with]…access to different technologies, it only allows the students to stay [on] a positive path,” he said.