2,160 students and 144 teachers from 36 schools in the Community of Madrid have been selected to participate in this initiative this academic year 2023-2024.
56% of them are participating in this technological challenge for the first time. In addition, this year the number of registrations has increased by 110% compared to the previous year.
A total of 215 schools in the Autonomous Communities of Madrid, Aragón, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Catalonia and the Canary Islands are participating in this initiative. Schools in Portugal are also participating in RetoTech for the first time this year.
The schools in the Community of Madrid region participating in the IX edition of Endesa Foundation's RetoTech have received kits equipped with technological materials to start working on their innovation projects. The delivery was made by the General Manager of Bilingualism and Quality of Teaching at the Ministry of Education, Science and Universities of the Community of Madrid, David Cervera, and the Endesa Foundation's Manager of Projects, María Teresa Gimeno, at an event held in the Madrid Higher Institute for Educational Innovation (ISMIE in Spanish).
RetoTech is an educational initiative with which the Endesa Foundation makes accessible and promotes technological entrepreneurship and study for STEM careers in schools and institutes in the Autonomous Communities of Madrid, Aragón, Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Catalonia and the Canary Islands. In collaboration with the Ministries of Education of the participating Autonomous Communities and with the support of BQ Educación, it challenges educational institutions to create a project focussed on meeting a real need in their community, such as for example, an automated recycling system for their classrooms or a device that improves the mobility of students in their school with disabilities, all of which has to include robotics, programming, 3D printing and an integrated app. As a new development this year, this initiative expands beyond its original boundaries for the first time and now includes Portugal.
In this ninth edition, the Endesa Foundation has selected 215 schools to participate nationwide. In the Community of Madrid, this year the number of registrations has increased by 110% compared to the previous year. Of all the centres selected, 36 are in the Community of Madrid, 19 are Primary Education and 17 Secondary Education centres, and 20 of these are participating for the first-time.
In the words of María Teresa Gimeno, the Endesa Foundation's Project Manager, "for us, education is one of the main vehicles for promoting STEM vocations among young people, and there is no doubt that for the Endesa Foundation it is a privilege that 36 schools in the Community of Madrid are participating with as in this edition of RetoTech to improve their technological knowledge by means of robotics, programming and 3D printing".
The General Manager for Bilingualism and Quality of Teaching at the Ministry of Education, Science and Universities of the Community of Madrid, David Cervera, stressed the importance of RetoTech to "develop teamwork, creativity, entrepreneurship and critical thinking while promoting students' STEM skills".
The Endesa Foundation will award 17 prizes to the best technological initiatives submitted as part of this edition, during an in-person festival to be held at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. There are three "Endesa Foundation Awards" at the national level to be chosen by a jury, and 14 of them, the "Teacher Awards", at autonomous community level and will be chosen by the teachers attending each festival, with two awards per participating autonomous community. The evaluation will take into account the originality and creativity of the project, as well as its applicability to a real need and its justification, as well as the technical competence and the aesthetic and artistic dimension of the work carried out.
In the last edition, the local awards for the Community of Madrid were won by CEIP Carmen Hernández Guarch in Tres Cantos , which received the most votes from the teachers in Madrid in the Primary category, with its project 'Plant the Planet', a "domed greenhouse" that enriches the air to obtain greater agricultural yield, and the Santa Elena de Villarejo de Salvanés School, the most voted in the Secondary School category, with its project 'Atizador', a chalk dispenser that works using a mobile app to make the day-to-day life of teachers in the classroom easier.
All participating centres receive kits equipped with technological materials so that they can start working on their projects. The teachers of each selected school will have in-person training focussed on the programme's three blocks: robotics, programming, and 3D design and printing.
Since its launch in 2016, nearly 57,000 students have improved their technological and STEM skills accompanied by more than 3,800 teachers.
About the Endesa Foundation
This year, the Endesa Foundation is celebrating its 25th anniversary. A quarter of a century of social work that allows us to look to the future with the challenge of continuing to progress, with a broad and conscious look at human beings and the rest of the species that surround us to build a world in which there is room for everyone.
To achieve this, the Endesa Foundation is contributing to social development and the conservation of biodiversity conservation through education, job training, culture, volunteering and urban biodiversity projects so that there is a future in which we can all live together in balance.
Learn more at www.fundacionendesa.org