PilotCity Hosts Flipped2019 at the ZNEC this Thursday

By SLNext
In Uncategorized
Aug 6th, 2019
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San Leandro’s PilotCity will be hosting PilotCity Flipped 2019 next Thursday, August 8th, 4PM – 7:30PM at the Zero Net Energy Center in San Leandro, CA. This event is a micro-conference led by PilotCity’s 40+ interns & fellows across 12 cities. They will be discussing their newfound expertise derived from their last six weeks of prototyping and product development in areas such as Autonomous Vehicles, Data Science, Internet of Things (IoT), Autonomous Drone Missions, Sustainability and Gaming. This event provides a snapshot of what these young citizens are able to build and highlights the potential to build on their work together. For more information, and to register for the event, click HERE.

This event is the culmination of a six-week internship program where students present their business ideas for critique. They have been working with local governments and tech companies to design solutions to problems such as homelessness, water conservation and clean energy.

Over the past six years, PilotCity co-founder Derick Lee has piloted programs that interweave education, workforce and civic engagement opportunities. The hope is that through providing project-based work, students not only develop job-ready skills, but also a stronger connection with their community. And by planting those seeds, the students are more likely to return to help their city after they graduate. For these efforts, PilotCity was awarded the prestigious 2018 East Bay Innovation Award in the category of Education.

“There are two missions with PilotCity,” says Lee. “Right now, we’re providing educational programming for career pathway purposes, and focusing on students, teachers and employers. In the future, we want to get all citizens onboard—elected officials, CEOs, police officers, all different citizen types. The whole idea is to create a more connected citizen who is empowered and enabled to bring change to the city.”

Lee’s ultimate goal is to expand this program nationwide, and he expects he’ll likely need to raise capital in order to fund that expansion. To date, much of the work has been arduous, particularly cultivating relationships with local employers in neighboring regions to get onboard. The PilotCity team is building an online portal to help facilitate the matchmaking, scheduling and planning involved between schools and businesses. Ultimately, the completed site will serve as a toolkit that future organizers can utilize to initiate their own PilotCity, anyplace in the nation.

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