UIC Youth/Student HSR Innovation Challenge Pilot Program Proposal

At Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure Inc. (“Iyai”), we believe that inclusive “people development” is key to collective success. Globally motivating and providing opportunities for all young people to become tomorrow’s infrastructure leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and skilled workforce—with emphasis on increasing the participation of young women and other historically under-represented groups in these careers. In the transport sector, women, people of color, indigenous groups and others are significantly under-represented in employment and business utilization. While there has been progress in recent years, significant inequities continue to persist—underscoring the importance of building greater youth awareness of transportation/mobility careers and the critical role they play in building and shaping communities, exposure to industry professionals/mentoring and active community engagement. On that note, we believe that valuing “youth voice” and “learned” experience in decision-making, active mentoring, and exposure to diverse professional development networks—as well as the opportunity to “learn by doing”—active youth engagement beyond the more traditional classroom and employer-based career-readiness programs is an important motivator. The emphasis of this research project is the expansion of Next Generation Talent Development and Diversification as an “actionable” initiative in support of The UIC Alliance of Universities’ overarching goals to improve education in High-Speed Rail (HSR); to exchange and disseminate know-how between Universities and UIC members—to include active youth awareness and engagement regarding the effects, both on economy and on society, of investments in HSR systems. This presentation highlights two efforts that are developing in the California area: the Iyai North American Innovation Challenge, and California High Speed Rail Authority's (Authority) I Will Ride program; both are designed to go “beyond” a traditional teaching experience. First, exposing youth to knowledgeable, experienced, and diverse professionals at all levels providing an opportunity to build and expand their own networks; learn about and gain access to important industry-specific and community career resources). And as importantly actively engage and encourage youth to give “voice” and “visibility” to their ideas, solutions, and personal “learned” experience(s) to help tackle locally identified sustainable mobility challenges in the facilities, systems, and network of services they use every day.