STEAM International Edutainment Platform

Dr. Jose Morey, CEO of Ad Astra Media and Fellow of the Eisenhower Foundation, leads a team in STEAM verticals from artificial intelligence to aerospace.  Dr. Morey is Chief Medical Innovation Officer for Liberty BioSecurity and is Chief Innovation Officer for Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. Previously, Dr. Morey has served as Associated Chief Health Officer for IBM Watson Health and as the Medical Technology and Artificial Intelligence Adviser for NASA iTech, which is an incubator created to identify and develop novel biotechnology to meet the 2030 Mars Mission objectives and deep space colonization. Dr. Morey also serves as an AI and Medical Technology Mentor for MIT Solve and IDEAS Accelerators, Senior Advisor to the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology CORD19 Project and Senior Advisor to the NASA AI Breathing Space Initiative. Dr. Morey is often featured in Forbes, Univision, CNBC and NASA360.

Minority and underserved communities lack of access to to STEAM education, including access to the people, critical tools, and community, which reduces entry of minority students into these critical STEAM-related fields. This underrepresentation has led to a systemic lack of capacity and diversity within the scientific community and perpetuated inequalities. 

The objective is to form a relationship between the pupils, the scientific community and individual inquiry. Using artistic expression to manage emotions while providing critical skills in emotional reasoning and stress management to improve the foundation for entry into STEAM fields. 

The Project aims to engage with and carefully develop interactive content that immerses students into a problem-solving journey where they learn to navigate the set of digital tools and scientific paradigms that will channel their curiosity into the depths of outer space.

Students in rural, underserved and minority communities lack access to the interpersonal connections needed to engage people inside the scientific community. This lack of connection reduces the dissemination of scientific knowledge throughout these communities decreasing the entry of these individuals within STEAM-related fields.

Over the last decade, advances in internet connectivity drove adoption of information and knowledge dissemination, within the realm of entertainment content. Younger generations have disproportionately adopted streaming and social media services for  daily entertainment. Users of streaming and social media content tend to have longer engagement periods with content.

New media technologies break down the traditional barriers to connect online. While children in this media environment respond less to marketers directly communicating with them, we see trendsetting individuals disseminate knowledge and content throughout digital communities in ways that influence viewers positively or negatively.

This lack of access could turn into a lack of capacity throughout minority and underserved communities, further reducing entry of minority students into critical STEAM-related fields. The objective is to form a relationship between pupils and the scientific community providing individual inquiry. Using artistic expression while providing critical skills in emotional reasoning and stress management to improve the foundation for entry into STEAM fields.

Ad Astra Media is a digital edutainment platform using real-time, interactive production tools and engagement techniques to introduce STEAM-related content to underserved communities. The Project aims to develop interactive content that engages and immerses students into a problem-solving journey, learning to navigate the set of digital tools and scientific paradigms that channel their curiosity into the depths of discovery.

Ad Astra Media leverages the willingness of younger communities to engage on emerging platforms. As scientists and educators adopt emerging digital engagement tools to disseminate knowledge and stimulate curiosity, streaming services and social media allow the content creator to tailor the on-screen interaction and content to pursue educational objectives like reaching at-risk communities, underserved areas, and minority student populations; facilitating a flexible view of content creation and creative engagement with the audience; fostering emotional fulfillment through the connections between STEAM creators and students.

Rather than viewing students as a knowledge repository, the Ad Astra platform forms its pedagogical approach around active engagement with viewers of livestream programming and interactive content. The Ad Astra digital engagement platform connects students with tools for individual and artistic creative expression, using character and narrative-driven content to reaffirm underlying scientific principles.

The intended audience is for students of all ages from underrepresented communities and minority groups. 

Relationships are critical for learning, exchanging knowledge and learning while establishing foundational values and ethics. Digital media platforms alter the engagement dynamic between the viewer and creator, facilitating an active conversational exchange between performer and viewer. 

Entertainers of all ages are vying for the attention of younger viewers. Teens spend nearly three quarters (71%) of their video consumption time with new media platforms Netflix and YouTube, according to the 36th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey from Piper Jaffray.  

Our innovation will be tailored to engage those communities with content that crosses the digital divide and educate through smart devices. Underrepresented communities in the US tend to access the internet through smart devices at equal numbers to majority communities. 

• A national parent survey found that 98 percent of homes with children have a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone.  

• 42 percent of young children have their own tablet device.

Edutainment platforms including mobile platforms and web-based content reach members of underrepresented communities and inspire them to think critically if these platforms are created properly. By developing the interests and proficiencies of underrepresented communities between STEAM disciplines can generate a more diverse and resilient STEAM workforce by providing critical tools and skills for twenty first century challenges. Pedagogical and logistic challenges exist reaching underserved or underrepresented communities personally and informationally. Understanding how to create non-traditional education curriculum/programs to become viral and and hold the attention of young people is a challenge, Ad Astra Media has created a unique concept.

The concept of the idea came from my keynote speaking. I have had the opportunity through my career in working through STEAM to speak to audiences of all ages and ethnicities. Something I tend to do is to ask people who inspire them. I tend to ask the audience if they have athletes who they follow, then ask who their favorite musicians are, etc... I then ask who they follow or admire in science and few, if any, have a response. I find this dramatic inequality more so in minority communities in which they tend to follow more people in the music or athletics industry, over the scientific community. This is a problem, if we don't find role models that inspire us, then we can’t aspire to be like them. I formed Ad Astra Media to provide role models and leaders for inspiration and to have more minorities, like myself, enter STEAM industries.

I am passionate about this because I myself am a minority leader in STEAM and notice that I am usually the only one who comes from an underrepresented community. Usually I’m the only hispanic with a seat at the table regardless of the company or setting. I see a lack of diversity and inequality when it comes to females, latino and blacks in STEAM industries which have ripple effects within our communities, including equal access to care, food deserts and criminal justice issues that we face today. There is much statistical evidence showing that there is a direct connection between income inequality and other disparities. The future high income industries will be in STEAM and we need to focus on driving equality in underserved communities to be able to mitigate many of the social disparities that we see today.

I have deep industry experience both in entrepreneurship and emerging technology development, writing and public speaking. I have worked as an Eisenhower Fellow, Associate Chief Health Officer for IBM Watson, Director of Innovation and Chief Engineering Council for Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, as an advisor for MIT, NASA, and the White House Office of Science and Technology. I have worked in various leadership capacities for many small and large private technology corporations. I am also active in the media through Forbes, Univision, NASA 360, CNBC, and NHK News. My focus is to host media content on online platforms to inspire future minority leaders in the fields of STEAM. I have been busy building partnerships and have received support from the Space Foundation, Worker Studio Animation, and the Eisenhower Fellowship to promote this content creation.

We were expecting prior to Covid several economic opportunities to develop and continue to promote our mission and vision of Ad Astra Media. This would have exponentially augmented the content creation. Due to Covid many of these opportunities did not come to fruition. However, the team was able to double efforts into identifying novel avenues for content creation, delivery, and social media following. Which has led to an opportunity with NHK News, the White House, Google Kaggle, Deeplearning.ai, and many others that we perhaps would not have otherwise developed if it wasn't for the initial setbacks. The team and I do not view set backs as failures but as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

As a mentor for MIT SOLVE I was able to help the Kinedu applicant team in developing a Machine Learning and AI ability to be able to take their data and create predictive analytical modules. This allowed Kinedu to win the 2020 MIT Solve Challenge to go from non existent data analytical to cutting edge AI capabilities.

Combining the fields of Science and Technology with entertainment to create novel content to inspire existing and future generations of underrepresented communities to go into fields of STEAM with a Transmedia approach (Film, Broadcast, Print, Games, Digital, Augmented Reality and Experiential Media).

We have currently reached over 7,500 individuals with our edutainment content.

1 year: 20,000

5 years: 1 million

Currently we are developing a STEAM based transmedia project which will have an episodic feature of 20-30 minute of part live animation and part 3D animation. The feature will be multilingual and could be described as a STEAM based Mr. Rogers. Each episode will cover a different topic of STEAM and will target children from minority and underserved communities from ages 5-12 to educate and inspire them to go into the fields of STEAM.

Market barriers include an underrepresentation of minority leaders within the fields of media production. As well as funding opportunities for underrepresented communities or writers and content creators of media projects. Technical barriers have already been overcome as content creation has already started.

All barriers will be overcome by creating communities that will help augment each other's capabilities. Partnerships that have already been developed that are helping to overcome obstacles. This includes sponsorship from Eisenhower Fellowship and letters of intent from animation studios. We have also received support from a nonprofit education group called MaaPaa, which is focused on serving single hispanic mothers in Texas, the Space Foundation which is developing STEAM Aerospace content for k-12, and Deeplearning.ai which is supporting education of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for all ages and communities.

MaaPaa, a non profit organization serving single hispanic mothers in Texas.

The Space Foundation, which is developing STEAM aerospace content for K-12

Deeplearning.ai, which is supporting education of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence of all ages and communities 

Eisenhower Fellowship, an organization that supports leaders who create change in the world

Ad Astra seeks to renew a faith in facts and reason and uplift underserved and minority communities by providing them with scientific role models in science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) to which they can aspire. Ad Astra is composed of individuals with experience at all levels of media (T.V. and commercial) production and extends into both traditional television (Spanish and English networks) and into leading streaming services and film studios.  We have memorandums of understanding with digital animation studios supported by the Space Foundation and who have worked with Disney and Pixar. Revenue generation will come from selling content to traditional and streaming services, providing adjunct educational content, advertising and sponsorships with technology companies.

Financial stability will come from selling content to traditional and streaming services, providing adjunct educational content, advertising and sponsorships with technology companies.  The lead revenue generation we envision from sponsorships and content licensing.  Ancillary product creation from our leading programming will help supplement.  We do envision early support from grants supporting minority education initiatives as well.