SHAKER LIFE | SUMMER 2014 45
Photography by Janet Century | Interview by Jennifer Proe
Who: Addisah Sherwood-Ajiboye, with husband Dr. Bolu Ajiboye
Where: They run the business out of their home in the Boulevard neighborhood.
Business: STEMpowerkids, a monthly mail-order subscription service of activity kits for
kids three years old and up, focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Professional Mission: To empower young people by promoting a love of learning in
science and math with “bite-sized” lesson plans, and to help families have fun together in
the process.
Personal Background: I come from a long line of teachers, but I sort of jumped ship and
went to law school. I moved to Cleveland after law school to clerk for the chief judge of the
U.S. District Court. Now I am a business litigation attorney with Calfee, Halter & Griswold
downtown. I grew up in sunny California, but I still love Cleveland, despite the weather!
¶ My husband grew up in North Carolina, and moved here after completing his Ph.D. for a
post-doc. He is a biomedical engineer. He is also a very accomplished salsa dancer, and I had
just started taking lessons when we met at a dance through Baila Duro (Cleveland’s salsa
social club). He literally swept me off my feet.
What I love about my work: My husband and I are both minorities; I am multiracial and
he is Nigerian. We are passionate not only about STEM education, but about closing the
achievement gap. We saw a significant push for early literacy, but not nearly as much for
math. Research has shown that the amount of math a child knows upon entering kindergarten
is a significant predictor of later academic success. ¶ When we realized how time
consuming it can be to gather all of the materials to do science and math projects at home,
we wanted to make this easier for other working families. I love that we have so much fun
doing these projects together as a family, away from computers and TV. We test out all of
the kits with our son, Elijah. His favorite is the exploding film canister lab in the chemistry
kit. ¶ We recently won a local entrepreneur contest through Bad Girl Ventures, which gave
us a great launching point. We were just accepted into the Flashnet business incubator to
develop a mobile app.
On Working and Living in Shaker Heights: We moved to Shaker Heights in 2011,
when I was pregnant with our son who is now three. We fell in love with the Shaker Lakes
and decided we wanted to live near them. We also love the Shaker Historical Society’s
garden tour. We just recently met the new superintendent of the Shaker Schools,
Dr. Hutchings, while we were at one of the parks and enjoyed talking with him. We are
definitely looking forward to enrolling our son in the Shaker Schools when he is old enough.
¶ We love that we can walk to the library, and in fact we had our son’s birthday party there!
We also love the sense of community. We recently found a lost dog. The Shaker police
connected us with the owners, but my son cried when it was time for the dog to go home –
so the dog’s family invited us to come visit anytime.
Contact: Monthly subscriptions are $24.99 plus $4.99 shipping and handling. For more
information about the company, visit their website at stempowerkids.com or find them on
Facebook at Facebook.com/stempowerkids. Phone: 216-394-9339. SL