THE WORLD'S Biggest SCIENCE FESTIVAL

An Interview with Marc Schulman, Executive Director, USA Science & Engineering Festival

- Robert Yehling 

Every two years, children and teens descend upon Washington D.C. for three days of fun and activity. This isn’t the ordinary eighth grade tour of our nation’s capital, though. They come by the hundreds of thousands, many of the smartest students in the world, to attend the biannual USA Science and Engineering Festival.

In 2018, attendees wore out the turnstiles. More than 375,000 students, educators, STEM experts, and government, industry, and corporate types gathered at the Walter Washington Convention Center to indulge in their favorite STEM pavilions and topics, spread over 2.4 million square feet. This was a remarkable leap in attendance for an event that only began in 2010 from the vision of the late Larry Bock.

Bock’s successor, Marc Schulman, became Executive Director in 2012. He started out working at the Fiesta Bowl Foundation, then in 2006 joined the X PRIZE Foundation as VP of Partnership and Marketing – perfect for the numerous marketing and content partnerships that make the Festival happen. He also owned a consultancy working with experiential marketing and event management.

As we roll out our exclusive coverage of the 2020 USASEF, Schulman spoke of the Festival and its ever-growing reach, not only into classrooms and STEM labs, but into the workplace. Let’s face it: the STEM kids of today are our future workforce in this increasingly digital and automated world. According to Schulman, the line between classroom and workplace is blurring, which he discusses.