How Gateway Empowers STEM Student Ambassadors' Success for the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA)
NIA, a nationally recognized leader in STEM education, partners with the Coastal VA STEM Hub, a regional STEM learning ecosystem serving pre-K through adult residents across Coastal Virginia, to expand their program access and impact with the new STEM Student Ambassadors Program.
The Challenge
How Can We Accelerate a STEM Program Launch and Ensure Talent Readiness?
With the aim of nurturing workplace readiness, confidence, and role competencies in emerging talent, the NIA STEM Ambassadorship's core challenge was to deliver high-quality onboarding for diverse cohorts, scaling personalized support without sacrificing engagement and real impact.
Sought a scalable system to support annual cohorts of 10+ ambassadors without compromising training quality and support efficiency for a small staff team.
Needed interactive content and assessment to optimize engagement and comprehensive data reporting to measure program effectiveness.
The Approach
Drive Impactful, Blended Learning for Professional Development
Transforming pages of notes and ideas, Gateway delivered a modular onboarding platform that fosters actionable learning through scenario-based interactions focused on communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. This successfully integrated ambassador cohorts into a hybrid environment.
Value Delivered
Every STEM Ambassador Seamlessly Ramped Up and Integrated Into Their Roles With Confidence and High Satisfaction
End-to-end completion and satisfaction metrics showed the program delivered lasting growth: ambassadors were not only well trained, but ready to advocate for STEM in high-impact settings.
User Delight Rating based on satisfaction rating and Net Promoter Score (NPS)
saved in annual onboarding and training costs.
successfully completed their professional development via the platform.
hours saved across training content creation, process setup, and onboarding.
Why Our Solution Works for the NIA
Gateway's scalable approach empowered NIA's ambassadors to confidently excel, integrating quickly and representing NIA across STEM and industry environments with professionalism.
Interactive, curated resources anchored onboarding, fostered engagement, and advanced equity - a vital goal for the Coastal VA STEM Hub. Gateway's model not only supported organizational excellence but drove industry alignment throughout the region's STEM pipeline.
"I really enjoyed the free-response questions and the real-world scenarios - they helped me understand what I might face in the workplace. The course felt perfectly balanced with words, images, and videos. The visuals and formatting made the information clear and easy to absorb."
"We thank you for your support and responsiveness in revising and delivering the Gateway Onboarding system. The onboarding portal was, once again, a great way to build a cohesive introduction for our high school STEM Student Ambassadors (SSA). It is always such a pleasure and privilege to work with you."