UPDATE! Click here to read about this year’s competition: Future City Competition 2018: Powering Our Future!
PMI Western Idaho Chapter – Helping Lay Foundations for Tomorrow
Imagine a future, where every city is clean, green, and self-sufficient. Cities that are powered completely by solar sidewalks and roads, or highly efficient wind turbines, or by harnessing wave power from the seas. Now imagine cities connected by free, maglev bullet trains and global hyperloops. Imagine education available to all, food grown locally, and robotic emergency medical technicians and police. What if your life’s work was to focus on the things that you are good at and that interest you?
Caption: Idaho Regional Future City Competition, 2017-2018, Vetus Bona Future City model
These and thousands of other questions face teams of our nation’s 6th, 7th, and 8th grade youth when they compete in the annual Future City competition. The Idaho Region of the Future City Competition typically fields around 36 teams of various sizes – all competing for top honors and an opportunity to go to the Nationals in Washington DC. Each team designs and competes on the basis of what an ideal city 100 years from now would look like and are judged across four areas:
- Sim City – Where teams build a virtual representation of their “Ideal” Future City
- City Essay – Where teams explain the workings and merits of their “Ideal” Future City
- Project Plan – Where teams demonstrate in writing, how they planned, organized, and approached the work for each of these four deliverables
- Model/Presentation – Where teams build a physical, scaled-down model of their “ideal” Future City and make public presentations on its workings and merits
Key Dates:
December 7, 2018 – Sim City, Virtual Models are due
December 14, 2018 – City Essays are due
January 5, 2019 – Project Plans are due
January 12, 2019 – Model/Presentations and Idaho Regional Future City Competition is held at Boise State University (Student Union Building)
How PMIWIC Supports this Effort
The Future City competition is supported nationally by PMI and locally. This year, your PMIWIC will again join the Idaho Region of the Future City Competition as a sponsor, helping to fund the competition and by supplying a special award. Last year, we had the honor of awarding the Best Project Plan, Special Award to the Future City Vetus Bona team. We also fielded several volunteer judges for the competition. Judges may participate in the weeks leading up to the competition by reviewing and judging the Sim City models, Essays, or Project Plans. On the day of the competition, judges walk the floor for a first hand presentation of the scale models. A panel of finalist judges, select the top winners.
Each year, we reach out to Future City team coaches with offers to make project management presentations, mentor, and answer questions. All Idaho Regional teams are also provided with PMI Educational Foundation resources such as:
- Project Management Toolkit for Teachers
- Managing Life’s Projects
- Project Management Skills for Life
- And access to dozens of other resource titles
Caption: Reme Pullicar, PMIWIC Educational Liaison and the Future City Vetus Bona team.
How YOU can get involved
Imagination, dedication, and team work bring these kids to the competition. It is both a learning experience and a chance to do something “Big.” You can help in any of the following ways:
- Host a project management workshop or fireside
- Become a coach, field a team, and join them in the city design process (Teams are typically supported by schools, scouting organizations, churches, clubs, etc.,)
- Become a mentor and help guild a team in an area of your expertise – say, Project Management for example
- Become a pre-event judge and help select the best Sim City model, Essay, or Project Plan
- Become an event judge and help select the best Model/Presentation
In addition to the above, this year, your PMIWIC is working to develop a special Future City Competition, Project Management Hints, Tips, and Tricks guide that is designed specifically around the competition and its deliverables. Reach out, we’d love to get your help.
Get more information about the Future City Competition here: https://futurecity.org and https://futurecity.org/idaho or contact Reme Pullicar through PMIWIC.
By: Reme Pullicar, MBA, PMP, PSM