Jessica Crenshaw

BrainSTEM

BrainSTEM was founded by Ricky Mason, a former NASA rocket scientist and CIA engineer from a single-parent home in Louisville, KY. His idea was to make STEM education more accessible for black students growing up like he did. Co-founders Kara Mason and David Miller joined and added their expertise in business and 3D design respectively, to the company. Covid forced us to host STEM programs online, and we quickly learned we needed a more engaging tool than Zoom, YouTube or Google Classroom. We researched VR technology, but everything available required a headset, something our customers could not provide for every student. To bring students more engaging online classes equitably, we developed BrainSTEM Metaversity. BrainSTEM Metaversity is a teaching tool for building student communities in the metaverse. Metaversity is VR technology that can be accessed on a Chromebook, tablet smartphone, as well as a VR headset, making it an equitable choice to introduce students to 3D VR worlds. Teachers can embed their current curriculum in our pre-built metaspace templates with a few clicks. Now students can experience the technology that will keep them engaged while keeping them connected to their real-life school community.