iyai+ Congratulates 2024 Challenge Award Recipients

8/9/2024

Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure, Inc. (iyai+) has announced its 2024 Sustainable Mobility Career Awareness & Innovation Challenge Award recipients. APTA is a Platinum Sponsor.

iyai+ is a national nonprofit whose mission is to address the future-ready workforce-development challenges facing U.S. critical infrastructure sectors. The organization also seeks to motivate young people to choose infrastructure careers and become tomorrow’s community builders—infrastructure leaders, skilled workforce, community advocates, entrepreneurs, and innovators—with an emphasis on increasing the participation of historically under-represented groups.

The program includes three key elements: Career Awareness; an experiential Innovation Challenge, which focuses on real-world local problem-solving; and a Critical Conversations component that brings a youth-centered focus to a high-priority industry-wide area of particular interest. This year’s area of focus is a re-assessment of the role of the bus operator: “More than a Driver.”

Annually, iyai+ recognizes the achievements of young innovators through its Innovation Challenge Awards.Local host organizers work with youth participants on a locally identified mobility/transport challenge, with a focus on equity-centered sustainable mobility, which culminates in a virtual Grand Innovation Challenge competition.

This year’s local host organizers and challenge participantsare from 12 locations across North America, including the Toronto Transit Commission in Canada:

  • AC Transit*
  • Bay Area Rapid Transit District*
  • Chicago Transit Authority*
  • Greensboro Transit Agency
  • Jacksonville Transportation Authority
  • City of Kearns, Utah
  • Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority*
  • Rhode Island Public Transit Authority*
  • Sacramento Regional Transit District
  • Toronto Transit Commission*
  • TriMet
  • Youth Action Project, Inland Empire*

(* Innovation Challenge team participants)

Learn more about iyai+, its awards and programs, and award recipients here.