Karen Abrams is a woman who deeply loves her family and who has been devoted to the development of Guyana since she first returned to represent Guyana in the Caribbean Basketball championships in 1986, after emigrating in 1984. She finds bias and discrimination at any level abhorrent and believes that Guyana has an opportunity to be a model for the world if citizens in our multi-ethnic society, decide to work together to develop the country.
Karen believes that technology is the path to that development and is confident that those who make the investments [in their children] today will reap the benefits tomorrow. It was along that line that led to Karen and her husband, Leon Christian, founding the Academy of Math, Science and Robotics in their Community.
Remembering what it was like growing up, Karen describes her childhood as being days of endless fun defined by community, sports and reading. It was her love for books that led her to gain a widespread understanding of everything that interested her. She attended the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Primary School and when she wrote her Common Entrance Exams, she was offered a place at St Roses’ High School. However, she would complete her High School education in the United States after she migrated whilst in fifth form.
Karen says because of her exposure to sports, at an early age in Guyana, she was offered full athletic scholarships to eight Universities throughout the US but settled for Howard University where she graduated with a BBA Degree in Management. She would later graduate from California State University with a Masters in Marketing.
After graduating from College in 1990, Karen started working at Mindspring Networks where she was exposed to the behind the scenes action of the tech industry. When she joined, Mindspring was just an internet startup company which is now the third largest internet service provider in the US. With all the knowledge she gained about the tech industry, Karen decided to end her career as the company’s Director of Operations and founded the Academy of Math, Science and Robotics with her husband. The aim was to help to expose and prepare youths for opportunities in the tech industry and it also provided the foundation for her own children to build strong STEM foundations.
“I am confident that it was this experience that prepared my own children for Stanford, Cornell and NYU,” she says.
Although she left Guyana in 1984, Karen said she never really left since she came back quite often and sees the establishment of STEM Guyana as one of her many contributions.
“Today I am passionate about STEM because I know that it could play a very important role in changing the lives of many, not only in preparing young people today for the jobs of tomorrow but also in changing their perspectives from one of pointing out problems to now taking steps to solve them,” she noted.
The STEM league challenges teams of 5 students to work together to solve problems with code and robots. It is the hope that the experience will strengthen their collaboration, communication and problem solving skills.
For Karen, finding a balance between STEM and her personal life is not much of a challenge since an amazing team of volunteers surrounds her and makes the job much easier. First Lady Sandra Granger have played an integral role in advancing STEM Guyana’s work by supporting them in outreaches as well as raising funds for them to travel overseas to participate in various competitions.
“In addition, the fact that my children are the co-founders of STEMGuyana and have been the key figures involved in designing and executing on many of our programs makes it easier I think. Our entire family is involved in one way or another. It was my husband Leon Christian, who suggested we look at the koker design to come up with ideas for our outstanding 2017 robot,” Karen says.
Presently, the STEM Guyana team is preparing for the robot Olympics in August of this year.
When asked about how she feels to be receiving the Golden Arrow of Achievement, Karen notes that it means a lot but wishes her father was alive to see her receive it since he would be bursting with pride. She hopes that it makes every one of their critical supporters and volunteers proud because it represents their contributions to the challenging mission. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
