The ninth annual Maryland STEM festival, spotlighting the growing creativity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics throughout the next month, kicked off with an event Oct. 13 at Howard Community College.

The festival’s theme this year is “STEM-ertainment,” highlighting Maryland’s strong video game and e-sports communities.

“There are a number of really big game makers, designers in this area and there is a very vibrant, independent game development community,” said Maryland STEM festival founder and executive director, Phil Rogofsky.

The kickoff event was held at Howard Community College. There are 270 events scheduled for the 29-day celebration through Nov. 11, but Rogofsky said his goal is to add more and reach 300 by the end of the festival.

“It’s events like this, where you really get to bring everybody together and you get to really be empowered to see this collective vision for the future,” said Chris Heady, a STEAM instructor for the Howard County public library system.

STEM is sometimes expressed as STEAM, adding an “A” for art to the acronym. Despite the field’s growth, Rogofsky warned about the dangers of going too far with adding letters to the name.

“If you make one change, then everybody wants things changed,” Rogofsky said. “I’ve seen people add an ‘R’ for reading, another ‘E’ for economics, another ‘A’ for agriculture and a ‘D’ for design.”

Rogofsky said he always had an interest in STEM but never pursued the path himself. When his son became interested, he gathered other parents of students at Wilde Lake Middle School, where his son attended, and started a STEM festival there.

Quickly gaining traction, Rogofsky and other parents created the Howard County STEM festival at Howard Community College.

A couple of years later, Rogofsky was sitting in a regional STEM seminar when inspiration to create a statewide event struck.

“The guy running the event looked at me and said, ‘How come Maryland doesn’t have one?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know it sounds like a great idea, but I’m not sure I have the bandwidth to do it,’ ” Rogofsky said.

A month later, Rogofsky started planning the first Maryland STEM festival, which debuted in 2015.

“It’s been life-changing for me,” said Falon Clark, junior lead of the Atholton High School robotics software team. “It’s really rewarding because there’s so many opportunities both in STEM and outside of STEM.”

With this year’s focus on video games and e-sports, the festival emphasizes the principles of art and creativity.

Samuel Greene, a student at Hammond Middle School, said he would consider a job in STEM, especially if it involved video games.

“If I could learn how to make them, then I would probably find a job [in STEM],” said Greene. Samuel’s dad, Jamie, is excited about the future though he acknowledges he is also learning.

“You know, people my age, we still have to remind ourselves that STEM is sort of where all future jobs are going to be for [our kids],” Jamie Greene said.

Krystal Rollon, an upper-level science teacher and robotics team sponsor at Glenelg Country School, said students gain a lot of character working in STEM and that helps them in emerging job markets.

“Robotics is for everybody,” Rollon said.