“Innovate Together,” a program organized and managed by Cisco’s Services Innovation Excellence Center (SIEC) aims to teach students how to identify a problem impacting their community, complete research to validate it, brainstorm solutions, and effectively communicate a solution in a pitch format.
The goal is to positively impact the community by leveraging IoT technology, while allowing students to come out of the traditional classroom setting and asking them to solve real-world scenarios.
With 125 seventh graders from Bay Point Middle School’s Center for Advancement of the Sciences and Technology in Florida participating in the two-day event, sixteen teams were formed. Among the problems addressed were proper nutrition for children, feeding the homeless, the opportunity automation is creating for re-skilling the workforce and affordable transportation.
The winning group, which developed a program around proper nutrition, integrating a wearable component to scan and track food intake and nutrition information. The $250 prize will be either donated to the community charity of their choice or used to advance the winning team’s concept.
Source: Innovate Together: Leaving the Traditional Classroom Behind to Solve Real-World Problems
