William Wells

Executive Director
aSteam Village

William Wells Jr., the executive director of aSTEAM Village, is responsible for running over 20 innovative STEM and adult certification readiness programs in the I.T. sector. Under his leadership, aSTEAM Village has been recognized as the 2019 - 2020 National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Jr. Pre-College Initiative (PCI) National Chapter of the Year. And as the architect of aSTEAM Village’s innovative program methodology, he has led aSV robotics and engineering teams to national championships, resulting in a student impact rate of over 85% of aSTEAM Village students moving on directly to college, the digital workforce, or the military.

Inspired by the experience of installing a metro-wide wireless broadband network in 2002, Wells knew the end-to-end process of designing, building, installing, provisioning, and maintaining a 24/7 digital voice, video, and data network could empower communities to become SMART communities that leverage digital technology on a community network.

Today, aSTEAM Village is under a 2-year contract with the City of Kansas City, Mo., to deploy a community-driven broadband network as a STEM Education and Digital Workforce Development program for middle school and high school students. This initiative, named Digital KC Now, is made of up the students, who call themselves the RedTails Digital Engineering Alliance, that successfully deployed an active network currently providing broadband connectivity to residential and commercial customers in Kansas City's 3rd Council District.

aSTEAM Village and the RedTails have also partnered with STEM City USA to create a digital twin of Kansas City called STEM City Kansas City, which is where education, healthcare, workforce development, and enterprise merge the physical world and the virtual world to leverage broadband intensive applications that can live and thrive in the metaverse.

Wells is committed to supporting today's youth as they emerge today as the leaders of tomorrow.