by Pete Basiliere; originally posted on the Gartner Blog Network

Mice, or more accurately Mouse, was a guest exhibitor at Gartner Symposium this week. Mouse “empowers underserved youth to learn, lead and create with technology. Our programs inspire STEM learning with 3D printing, green technology, physical computing, technology design and more!” More than 23,000 students in four states have participated in Mouse programs since 2000.

The organization was right upfront in the central pavilion where attendees went to visit Gartner’s resource center and to meet their peers in the comfortable and cool lounge.

IT leaders worldwide intuitively know that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills are critical for students to master in today’s workforce.

At Symposium I spoke with one client, from a multistate healthcare organization in the Midwest, about using 3D printing in their hospitals. Obvious uses include models that enable surgeons and their teams to see and handle a physical representation of what they are about to encounter, a critical capability for unusual, complex or particularly risky operations.

We also spoke at length about prostheses for young children. I recently made a child’s prosthetic hand at my local library using their MakerBot Replicator 2. The mechanical hand cost $3 for materials and $2.50 for hardware using free plans from EnablingTheFuture.org.

We discussed how the ability to make such adaptive devices with 3D printing in the hospital enables children to have multiple inexpensive 3D printed until they grow into their adult size when a prostheses costing tens of thousands of dollars could be practical.

A $10 prosthetic hand will do when a $10,000 one is not affordable.

Another Symposium attendee thrilled me when talking about his involvement with a non-profit organization that enables students to use 3D printers for their schoolwork. This gentleman has two 3D printers that are used by students, including home schooled students. And he wants to grow the organization from the affluent community that he lives in to other less well-to-do towns nearby. His vision is to have students from multiple communities come together to use 3D print as part of their education.

I enabled our local library to secure the MakerBot. Already students and adults alike are using it to print school projects, hobbies (one young person is making a chess set) and learning new skills.

A far cry from the woodworking classes of my youth, there is nothing to stem the tide of 3D printing in our schools.

Pete Basiliere is Research Vice President, Imaging and Print Services at Gartner.