Founded in 2010 by Larry Bock, the festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the United States.

Speakers' backgrounds were varied and spanned chemistry, biotechnology, engineering, math, computer science, medicine, green technology, nanotechnology, business, physics, astronomy, and energy.

[2] The "Lunch with a Laureate" program was focused on a small group of middle and high school students across the greater Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and Maryland areas.

Sharp, Kary B. Mullis, Kurt Wuthrich, Douglas D. Osheroff, Baruch Samuel Blumberg and Sir Harry Kroto.

[7] Satellite festivals were being planned in 2010 at a number of locations throughout the United States, including: Arizona: Tucson; California: Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Ana; Florida: Gainesville, Jacksonville, Ruskin, West Palm Beach; Idaho: Pocatello; Illinois: Chicago, DeKalb; Maryland: Middle River, Rockville; New Jersey: Clifton; New York: New York City, Rochester; North Carolina: Chapel Hill (North Carolina Science Festival); Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus; Texas: Austin, Dallas, San Antonio; Virginia: Fairfax, Falls Church, Hampton, Reston; Washington: Vancouver (Pacific Northwest Science & Engineering Festival).

[29] Including attendees, exhibitors, volunteers and staff over 200,000 people actively participating in this momentous Festival celebration over the three-day period.

The new X-STEM Symposium- presented by Northrop Grumman Foundation - an Extreme STEM Symposium was conducted for middle and high school students on April 24.

Based on estimated numbers from the Convention Center, more than 325,000 people attended over the 4 days (X-STEM and Sneak Peek Friday included).

More than 4,000 students and teachers from area and underserved schools, homeschoolers, and military families attended the inaugural X-STEM Symposium.

[32] The X-STEM Symposium was held as a stand-alone event on April 14, 2016, and featured presentations and workshops by leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

[33] Partners of the festival included the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Physical Society, American Chemical Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Association for Women in Science, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Georgetown University, University of California, San Diego, University of California, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, United States Naval Academy, Duke University, University of Maryland, J. Craig Venter Institute, Carnegie Institution for Science, National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Office of Naval Research, U.S. Department of Energy, Air Force Research Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, Agilent Technologies, Google, Baxter International, ResMed, Hitachi, Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History, United States Botanic Garden, Marian Koshland Science Museum, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), Girls, Inc., Girl Scouts of the United States of America and Boy Scouts of America.