The foundation was founded in 2009 as a non-profit corporation with an initial $50 million investment from Irvine, California-based semiconductor chipmaker Broadcom Corporation, at the direction of Henry Samueli, the company's co-founder, who was inspired to become an electrical engineer in his middle school shop class and Broadcom Chief Executive Scott McGregor, who cited science fair involvement as a factor for his own success. McGregor was named the foundation's first president and chairman. In 2016, Samueli was elected as chair and Paula Golden was installed as president. In September 2010, the foundation contributed $6 million to science fair organizer Society for Science & the Public to launch Broadcom MASTERS, a national science fair program for middle school students in the United States. Paula Golden, the foundation's executive director, was quoted in The New York Times describing the critical need for additional science fair and STEM education funding in the United States. The MASTERS was unique in that it combined traditional science fairs with additional teamwork exercises for fair winners. In 2012, the foundation began funding graduate engineering fellowships at the University of California, Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering. In 2016, the foundation established the Broadcom Fellows Student Research Workshop and Symposium, which provides fellowships at UCI and UCLA in the areas of computer technology and semiconductors. In March, the foundation contributed to endow the Presidential Chair in electrical engineering and computer science at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering.
Programs
The foundation contributes to a variety of programs to promote education in STEM fields. Programs include the Broadcom MASTERS middle school science fairs organized by Society for Science & the Public; the Broadcom Fellows Student Research Workshop and Symposium for students at UCI and UCLA; and Broadcom Presents: Design_CODE_Build, a program using the Raspberry Pi to teach middle school students to code, presented with the Mountain View, California-based Computer History Museum. The foundation also funds a research fund at Tel Aviv University, and sponsors coding programs arranged by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
