Boeing announced Tuesday it would be donating grant packages totaling $48 million to charities around the world in observance of Giving Tuesday.

Boeing is the largest aerospace company in the world and a leading provider of commercial airplanes, defense, space and security systems, and global services. It supports commercial and government customers in 150 countries, with more than 150,000 employees worldwide.

The grants will support 404 charitable organizations in 50 countries, funding programs through 2020 and beyond, according to Boeing.

More than $700,000 of the company’s investment will go to 10 organizations in Arizona that help veterans in the community and inspire prospective aerospace scientists and engineers.

“Boeing’s people bring to life our values and our enduring commitment to supporting the communities where we live and work,” said Dennis Muilenburg, president and CEO of .

Boeing says its employees amplify the aircraft manufacturer’s giving: By the end of 2019, Boeing employees will have donated nearly $40 million to charitable causes, bringing total employee contributions to $350 million in the past 10 years.

In 2018, Boeing’s 4,300 Arizona employees volunteered 11,000 hours mentoring FIRST Lego League and Robotics teams, building school gardens and helping veterans write resumes to help them re-enter civilian life, according to a company representative.

“Through their close collaboration, our teams and community partners are working to inspire the next generation of aerospace innovators, support our veterans and create lasting change in the communities we call home,” Muilenburg said.

The Giving Tuesday charitable grants package includes $8 million for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and workforce development programs that help build a “talent pipeline” of civil aviation pilots and maintenance technicians, according to Boeing.

Boeing’s Pilot and Technician Outlook 2019-2038 that 804,000 new civil aviation pilots, 769,000 new maintenance technicians and 914,000 new cabin crew personnel will be needed to fly and maintain the world’s fleet over the next 20 years.

The includes the commercial aviation, business aviation and civil helicopter industries.

“At Boeing, were committed to helping students succeed,” said Cheri Carter, vice president of Boeing Global Engagement. “We want students to know that their future belongs to them — it has no boundaries.”

The company also committed $800,000 to launch the first Newton Flight Academy in Turkey in 2020, expanding on the existing Newton Europe in Spain and Poland that launched this year. The program teaches STEM skills to high school students through hands-on methods; grant dollars will support a permanent classroom in Turkey that includes three full-motion Boeing flight simulators.

“We believe our success as innovators depends on everyone coming together to inspire the next generation to share in our aerospace advancements,” Carter said. “That’s why we’re investing more than 50 percent of our philanthropic dollars to fund programs in the U.S. and abroad.”

A previously announced $10 million for veterans’ recovery and rehabilitation programs, as well as workforce transition services, is also included in the $48 million investment.

Giving Tuesday is a started in 2011 to create an international day of charitable giving immediately following Thanksgiving and the Black Friday sale shopping weekend.

To see a full list of Boeing’s grant partners, .

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The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers hosted its 45th annual national convention from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, bringing thousands of people from across the nation together at the Phoenix Convention Center.

SHPE is an organization dedicated to empowering the national Hispanic community to realize its academic and professional potential in order to impact the world through STEM awareness and development.

The national organization has more than 11,000 members, 230 chapters and hundreds of sponsor organizations throughout the United States, including 3M, Google and Chevron.

“The SHPE 2019 Convention in Phoenix wasn’t just successful, it was a game-changing event,” said Raquel Tamez, CEO of SHPE, after the event. “We had a record-breaking 9,200 attendees, 620 interview booths and hundreds of SHPE members walking away with new jobs. I could not be prouder of everyone who made this incredible week possible.”

The convention featured five conferences: a pre-college convention for middle and high school students who can participate in STEM-related activities; the “SHPEtina” conference featuring female members and attendees; the academic conference, which hosted undergraduate and graduate students, professors, advisors and deans of various universities; the professional conference for professionals within STEM fields; and the technology in innovation conference which hosted competitions including a hackathon, the Nissan Design Challenge and “extreme engineering.”

The conference had almost 300 organizations represented on the career expedition floor recruiting for internships, jobs and graduate programs. The organizations had more than 600 interview booths and made job offers on sight.

Top sponsors this year included Honeywell and American Express, which offered SHPE members coveted positions. The convention also saw 40 Fortune 100 companies.

According to SHPE, it is too early to determine specific numbers, but it is safe to say hundreds of jobs were offered during the event.

The convention held its inaugural Star Awards Gala Saturday evening, in which it featured two outstanding STEM leaders.

Tamez said this is the first year featuring an award named after Ellen Ochoa, the first and only Latina astronaut; at future events, SHPE will give the award to exceptional leaders in aerospace.

This is the second year that SHPE awarded the Rubén Hinojosa STEM Champion Award, named after the former Democratic congressman from Texas. Silvia Acedo, CEO of Girl Scouts USA, received the award this year.

“As a Latina myself, I’m very excited that these two preeminent star awards are being awarded to two Latinas,” Tamez said.

Tamez emphasized the mutually beneficial relationship between the City of Phoenix and SHPE. By creating new jobs and drawing more attention to STEM fields, SHPE helps fuel the local economy, and Phoenix has been a supportive and accommodating host for the organization, she said.

“Phoenix has been so warm and welcoming and receptive and helpful and supportive,” Tamez said. “We really do want to have a positive impact on the cities we come into by engaging all year long and supporting local businesses, and I like to think we are doing that… This is monumental for us, and here in Phoenix, too, because we have a really strong relationship and really large active chapters here in Phoenix, especially at [Arizona State University].”

Tamez and her team are already planning for the 2020 conference, which will revolve around “transcendence of transformation” in the Hispanic community.

“Every year, we’re bringing in more members, more attendees, more exhibitors, more sponsorships, more interview booths, more sessions — it’s just getting bigger and more impactful,” Tamez said. “We’re able to have a greater impact, and that’s what it’s all about.”

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Tucson is rapidly becoming a hotbed for innovation in Arizona, witnessing the origins of avant-garde startups and businesses trying to change the world of aerospace, optics, medicine and engineering through technology.

“T��� is big and getting bigger, with companies like Vector and World View coming online,” said Doug Hockstad, assistant vice president of , a program through the University of Arizona that helps university-based startups commercialize new products.

Another growing area is optics, the branch of physics that deals with light and vision — developing products like cameras, sensors, lasers and fiber optics.

The optics industry is beginning to permeate a lot of other tech fields: mining, one of Tucson’s most well-established industries; health, another growing industry in the region; and aerospace and defense.

“T���re’s a startup called Omniscient that started a couple years ago that has created a 360-degree viewing endoscope used for colonoscopies,” Hockstad said. “It could be used for other things as well, but the idea [is] that you get both a forward and a backward view as you’re using it, which is significantly more than currently exists.”

The Tucson area has been dubbed “Optics Valley” because of how much the industry has grown, he said.

“Optics Valley is… a committee that’s housed under the Arizona Technology Council, and they have a list of 40 optics companies,” said Michael Guymon, vice president of the Tucson Metro Chamber. “Tucson has been known as Optics Valley, because we have one of the best optics schools in the country at the University of Arizona.”

Guymon said he thinks that most people would be surprised to learn that 40 optics companies call Tucson home.

“Most of those companies really fly under the radar,” he said. “Some of them are also startups themselves, but it just goes to show that there’s sort of this burgeoning technology infrastructure that is really being established here in Tucson.”

Large companies are also gaining traction in the Tucson area, Hockstad said.

“I’ve already mentioned and , but even Caterpillar moved one of their main sites down here,” he said.

When its Surface Mining and Technology Division to Tucson in 2016, the company “really planted the flag” in the region, Guymon said.

Many companies have grown and relocated to southern Arizona because they see a base of talented employees in the region, and “it always starts with workforce,” he said.

“We’ve seen this play out very well in the aerospace and defense industry, because obviously we have Raytheon with soon-to-be 13,000 employees out there, and we have 200 companies in southern Arizona that are here because of that presence,” Guymon said. “Not only is it the great school of aerospace and engineering that we have in the College of Engineering at the U of A, but we’re also developing other skills at Pima Community College that are relative to that industry.”

Cost is the other major factor drawing people to Tucson, and many companies are fleeing high living and business expenses in other states, especially California, he said.

“Arizona as a whole is experiencing some of that flight from California,” Guymon said. “Part of the reason for that is because of cost, whether it’s cost of living or cost of labor. Those companies are seeking out Arizona communities, because they can do those expansions or possibly relocate, because their cost of doing business will decrease.”

Tucson also sees a lot of startups — Hockstad’s area of expertise — especially at Tech Launch Arizona.

“We are the commercialization unit for the university,” Hockstad said. “We’re everything, from the very beginning when a researcher says, ‘hey, I think I’ve invented something really cool,’ to the market analysis of that invention, to the patent protection of that invention, to the marketing and license negotiations of that into a company.”

Not every commercialized product results in the launch of a startup business, but a subset of Tech Launch is dedicated to that process, he said.

There is a “growing ecosystem” for startups in Tucson and in Arizona as a whole, Hockstad said. Just in the past year or so there have been three or four venture funds established in the area, he said.

UAVenture Capital, a Tucson-based not affiliated with UA, helps finance startups originating at the university. The fund was founded in 2017 to drive local entrepreneurship and support the commercialization of products resulting from university-based research.

will cover a larger, multi-state region of the Southwest, and , a subgroup of Diamond Ventures, is focused on tech investments, Hockstad said.

New-business incubators are also helping nurture fledgling tech companies: UA announced a downtown Tucson-based incubator called , and the town of Oro Valley is getting ready to launch a new bioscience-based incubator called the , Hockstad said.

He said the most apt comparison to Tucson that he has heard is Austin, Texas, 10 years ago.

“T���re’s been a renaissance downtown; there is a huge number of startups, and a growing number of startups that are launching; there’s new incubators coming online; there’s new venture capital and new sources of funding,” he said.

South by Southwest, the nationally-renowned technology festival held in Austin each March, served as the inspiration for a new festival in Tucson: TENWEST.

Launched in 2014 by , TENWEST is a multi-disciplined festival of arts, sciences, tech and entrepreneurship that takes place each October in downtown Tucson. Participants can “learn, inform, network and explore their community,” according to the .

When asked who some of the biggest influencers in the Tucson area are, Hockstad pointed to Fletcher McCusker, of UAVenture Capital and a UA alumnus himself.

“He has been a driver of local entrepreneurship, the ability to grow companies locally, the ability to attract and fund them so they can stay here if they want,” Hockstad said. “He always stayed here when he started his companies.”

McCusker is also the chairman of the board at , a Tax Increment Finance District funded by state sales tax responsible for revitalizing the buildings and community of downtown Tucson to create a dynamic city center.

“He has been central in revitalizing downtown Tucson,” Hockstad said. “Combining everything he’s doing, he has been a major influence on what’s happening in Tucson.”

Hockstad also had positive words to say about UA Dr. Robert Robbins, who took the position in 2017.

“He is a force to be reckoned with,” Hockstad said about Robbins. “He has great vision, and he’s already implementing a new strategic plan, and a lot of it has to do with working with industry.”

Looking to the future, Guymon and Hockstad each expressed expectation for continued growth.

“We’re going to see higher levels of manufacturing here in our region,” Guymon said. “I think we’re going to see, certainly, an increase in startups and technology that is coming out of the University of Arizona.”

Hockstad said he thinks that within the next few years — though he is not sure how many — Tucson will be nationally-recognized as a hotbed for entrepreneurship.

“I think we’re going to see continued growth and success in this market, and I think we’re going to see some other markets, other places, looking to us for our experience,” he said.

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