This web portal has been developed with support provided by a grant from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Intel Corporation, the Center developed a competitive program to support STEM education efforts, awarding grants to six states in 2007, including Hawaii.

One of the main objectives of the Hawaii grant was to create this web portal as a means of communicating with business, industry, parents, students, teachers, administrators and other stakeholders about the importance of STEM education and the availability of STEM programs. New programs such as the HiEST high school STEM academies and FIRST Pre-Academy were proposed as part of Governor Linda Lingle’s Innovation Initiative and authorized by the Legislature in 2007.

The scope of the portal has expanded to include other new programs such as the Creativity Academies which attract more students to STEM by combining course work in new media arts with physics.