Day One Challenge Shows off Georgia High School Talent
Thursday, July 19th, 2018
Georgia is well known for its strong university system and for producing some of the top workforce talent in the nation. But the state gets a head start in developing this talent through its leading high schools, where technology and innovation clubs develop skills and solutions to real-world problems.
The Day One Challenge brought ten teams of high schoolers from across Georgia together to showcase the ideas they produced from a simple challenge.
Students were given 30 days to develop an idea using artificial intelligence to solve a problem in health, education or sustainability. Following Amazon’s PRFAQ model, teams had to write a reverse press release explaining the impact of their idea, as well as put together a document of Frequently Asked Questions to further flesh out their proposals.
“I gave [my students] the information, and they had 90 minutes for three days to figure it out and do it,” says Christi Hobgood, a teacher at Pickens High School who brought three teams to the Challenge. “And they actually ran with it and did a nice job.”
On May 5, all teams gathered at The Garage at Tech Square for the Day One Summit to showcase their ideas, participate in challenges and be honored for their work.
“There’s a strong hunger within the high school student population for these project-based challenges,” says Scott Henderson, Day One Challenge organizer and CEO/Co-founder of Sandbox Communities.
“We use this challenge to connect them with opportunities like camps, internships, job opportunities, and scholarships. That’s really the heart of what the Day One Challenge is. To get the best minds to surface, and then connect them with opportunities that they may not even know exist, so they can then further their path to success.”
The finale of the Day One Summit featured the big reveal of the top three teams:
1st place: Lambert High School – CALM (Cholera Artificial Learning Model)
2nd place: Maynard Jackson High School – Materialize.AI
3rd place: Athens Community Career Academy – Expand Literacy
Other awards included:
-
Best Pitch: Lambert High School
-
Public Vote Winner: Lambert High School
-
Best Video: Maynard Jackson High School
