This book begins as an ethical treatise on how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing) should be developed and applied based on lessons found in the social philosophy called Kawaida.

Kawaida is a communitarian African thought system created by Dr. Maulana Karenga that informed creation of the Pan African holiday, Kwanzaa, and the Nguzo Saba / Seven Principles value system.

This book began with a review of existing Kawaida scholarship for the author to extract and develop a Kawaida perspective on STEM. The principles, practices, criticisms, challenges, and goals outlined in this book were chosen to reflect a Kawaida perspective on how STEM should be developed and applied.

The prevailing intent is to inspire and create an increasing number of “sedjemic” STEM professionals in the global Black community to reclaim our once prominent cultural focus as “responsible and responsive” masters of every STEM discipline. Our ancestors and the future require nothing less.

The author, Shujaa Baker, explains how forty years’ experience as a STEM professional, twenty years as a student of Kawaida, and more than a decade coordinating cultural study group activities in southern California led to his role in this project. This book is a summary of his life’s work so far.

Shujaa explains how he resolved concerns between Kawaida and Min. Malcolm’s teachings in conversation with Min. Malcolm’s primary colleague, official photographer, and the Vice President of the Organization for Afro-American Unity, Prof. Earl (5X) Grant, who was 80yo when they met in study group. He further explains how this prompted him to promote the “Kawaida conception of Blackness” as the best path to lead us to become the best version of ourselves and inspire the same in others.

The book concludes with the introduction of an expansive Kawaida STEM project that reflects the lessons in this book and all Seven Principles applied at a high level. [Ref– https://kwanzaa.org]