Our projects
We support around 20 projects focused on education for young people in need every year
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‘Roger That’ Inspiration Lab
The Netherlands
Strengthening the mental resilience of young people
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The Rogier Hulst Foundation aims to strengthen the mental resilience of youth through the ‘Roger That’ Inspiration Lab. The lab provides a meeting place for young people and will implement a newly developed holistic program. One of the aims of this program will be to inspire and encourage young people to discover and develop their talents. The first of these inspiration labs now operates in the Brainport Eindhoven region.
The lab offers tailor-made education programs for small groups to work with local educational institutions. The ASML Foundation has committed to support this technology education aspect of the program for a period of three years.
TechMeUp
The Netherlands
Making tech education accessible
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TechMeUp is a joint initiative from multiple technology education institutions to facilitate the retraining of underserved or vulnerable people for a future career in technology. The initiative’s goal is to serve a population that is at least 50% women, providing them with an opportunity to complete short-term technology training programs through interest-free loans to be repaid after they’ve found a job.
The ASML Foundation has committed to supporting students in the Brainport Eindhoven region for a period of three years, after which time TechMeUp plans to become self-sufficient.
Girls Can Do IT!
China
Bringing more gender equality to STEM
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The Girls Can Do IT! Program is run by PLAN international Nederland. It is aimed at girls and young women from Chunhua and Pucheng counties in Shaanxi province, China, to ensure a more gender-balanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in rural China.
By nurturing a greater interest and confidence in STEM among rural children – especially girls – the program hopes to increase the number of women pursuing higher education in these fields. The project, implemented over three years, has two phases: in the first year, the focus is furthering the development of pre-STEM curricula, including robotics and life skills, in six primary schools and four junior secondary schools in order to ensure that the subjects are relevant to the students. In the second and third years, the project expands to include the capacity building of local organizations, other schools and the education bureau. ASML employees located in China volunteer with this project as mentors and by providing tours of ASML offices.
Girls, Inc.
Oregon, US
Inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold
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Girls, Inc. of the Pacific Northwest (Girls Inc. PNW) helps girls in low-income communities to overcome barriers to their life-long success by teaching them to be strong (through lessons and activities supporting healthy living), smart (through hands-on activities involving STEM concepts as well as through college preparation) and bold (through teaching leadership skills and economic, financial and media literacy).
The ASML Foundation supports the Girls, Inc. Eureka! Program, an intensive five-year program that utilizes a STEM-based approach to engaging and empowering girls in grades 8–12 to see themselves as leaders and an important part of the workforce of the future. The long-term goal of the Eureka! Program is to motivate and support girls living in low-income communities to make healthy life choices, pursue post-secondary education and careers in STEM fields and to ultimately achieve economic independence.
Connecticut Invention Convention
Connecticut, US
Instilling the spirit of ingenuity through invention and innovation
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The ASML Foundation has been supporting the Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC) for more than five years and recently committed to supporting them for another three years.
Founded in 1983, the CIC is a non-profit educational program that is open to all K-12 students statewide, and is designed to develop and encourage creative-problem-solving and critical-thinking skills through innovation and entrepreneurship. The CIC offers students a way to discover new skill sets and apply these in real-life settings, while nurturing STEM skills. The program reaches more than 16,000 students annually, including 3,000 in the Hartford area, with a diverse population of student participants.
The CIC is also actively working with the ASML Foundation to engage ASML employees as judges, volunteers, and mentors.
Eindhoven Basic Skills City Plan
Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Strengthening literacy in Eindhoven through prevention-focused, family-based activities
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Literacy is the foundation of education and a crucial to inclusion in society. The ASML Foundation is supporting the literacy project of the Eindhoven municipality. Research has found that one in four young people aged 15 in the Netherlands are at risk of reaching only a low level of literacy, a situation worsened by COVID-19.
The project, initiated by the municipality and other businesses and organizations in the region, aims to support these young people and strengthen literacy in Eindhoven. The first phase of this project is targeting children aged zero to four years old and their parents. Actively involving the parents of these children is important as parents play an indispensable role in their child’s language development.
In time, this program is intended to expand to include the whole region of Noord-Brabant and cover all age groups, from preschool to adulthood.
Teach for Viet Nam
Viet Nam
Advocating for and enabling accessible education for all
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Part of global organization ‘Teach for All’, ‘Teach for Viet Nam’ aims to make equitable, modern and relevant education available to all Vietnamese students. In Viet Nam, access to education varies greatly between rural and urban areas, with 80% of students lacking the digital knowledge needed for many jobs.
Teach for Viet Nam, created in collaboration with Dr. Pham Thi Huong (Institute for Education Research of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education), offers a modern business studies and STEM curriculum.
Talented young professionals are positioned in schools, where they train teachers to apply this curriculum. Not only does this project build a school’s infrastructure, it aims to incites systemic change in the current education system. Although ASML does not operate in Viet Nam, the ASML Foundation has agreed to fund this project because it has been put forward by an ASML employee.
Adream Center
China
Enabling schools and teachers to offer more to their students
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The Adream project aims to help children in isolated areas in China gain skills, confidence and empathy. The current schooling curriculum in China relies on local school teachers and their resources. This is a difficult task for schools in lower socio-economic areas or rural regions where funding is lacking. The Adream project gives these schools a boost, offering them access to relevant and cross-disciplinary curriculums for free, establishing centers to facilitate and enhance the learning environment, and providing teachers with training programs to develop their skills.
Since the beginning of the program, 4,613 Adream Centers have been established and more than 37 Adream courses have been developed – creating a vast network and community for schools enrolled in this project.
IMC Basis
The Netherlands
Supporting disadvantaged children in primary schools
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IMC Weekend School is applying its more than two decades of education experience and knowledge to the regular school system through the IMC Basis program. IMC Basis is a program for primary schools throughout the Netherlands in communities experiencing poverty, unemployment and integration challenges.
Over two years and at selected schools, pupils from ages 10 to 13 participate in IMC Basis’ weekly three hour lessons during regular school hours. The school’s teachers are also active participants. A coordinator from IMC Basis is responsible for the content, organization and preparation, together with voluntary guest teachers. The school’s teacher ensures an interaction between IMC Basis and that the standard school curriculum is taught.
IMC Basis has operated in the Noord-Brabant region since 2019 with nine primary schools and around 45 children per school.
Plusjeklas
The Netherlands
Enhancing gifted students’ skills
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Plusjeklas, an initiative from Stichting Ondernemend Plusklasonderwijs, is an online learning method developed for children in primary school who are extremely advanced (‘gifted’). Every year, an estimated 7,000 students with high learning abilities drop out of school in the Netherlands because they aren’t challenged enough or lack other critical skills.
Plusjeklas focuses on skills that help children reach their full potential, with three main themes: learn to challenge, learn to know yourself and learn entrepreneurial skills. Each subject has nine building blocks and, together, these 27 life skills offer a complete set of useful skills for these children.
The ASML Foundation supports Plusjeklas courses for more than 2,400 children in 60 primary schools from the region surrounding ASML’s headquarters in Veldhoven.
