For its part, Cognizant is tripling its investment in STEM education by 2017, committing to providing 1.5 million hours of program activities to 25,000 children in 200 communities. Most recently, Cognizant announced this week that its "Making the Future" initiative had awarded 34 grants to after-school, in-school and summer programs at 54 sites across the country. That will touch more than 5,000 students with more than 250,000 hours of STEM-focused activities.

In particular, Nash said the program looks to focus its efforts on young women and under-represented minorities. To do that, Nash said Cognizant is putting research into practice on how to drive interest in those groups, for example tailoring programs for girls towards engineering activities with a social purpose, which have been shown to be more effective in developing interest for STEM.

"These programs help make children aware of the opportunities to make a significant impact on our world, which can in turn lead to tremendous economic opportunity for themselves and their families," Nash said.

The efforts are paying off, she said, with participant survey data showing that the Making the Future programs are "contributing to the development" of those participating and Cognizant is seeing participants "increasing their activation towards STEM."

For solution providers looking to get involved in programs such as this, Nash said Cognizant has seen particular success with public-private partnerships, such as Citizen Schools and the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

"It's about building awareness and recognizing that traditional approaches alone are not meeting the demands of future jobs or preparing a trajectory of success for the next generation of workers. Innovation is about taking something we have done traditionally and improving upon it."