2023-2024 Future City Competition
Challenge Topic: Electrify Your City
Fact Sheet

• The 32nd annual Future City Competition for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade STEM students is September 2023 through February 2024. This year’s Future City challenge is to design a 100% electrically powered city with energy generated from sources that keep their citizens and the environment healthy and safe.
• Competition finals of nationwide regional winners are held during Engineer’s week, February 18 to 20, 2024 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill at 400 New Jersey Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. Three teams from China are also competing.
• Winners will be announced February 20, 2024.
• The Future City competition is a program of Discover Engineering (DiscoverE), based in Alexandria, VA., Address: 1520 Belle View Blvd, #3413, Alexandria, VA 22307.
• DiscoverE is a nonprofit organization comprised of more than 100 professionals from a coalition of nationwide engineering, science, and technological corporations, government agencies, and professional societies.
• DiscoverE is leading a growing volunteer movement that inspires and informs present and future generations to discover engineering, engaging students, parents, and educators in hands-on experiences while making science and math relevant.
• DiscoverE Vision Statement: Discover E believes a STEM experience with an engineer, educator and student can transform the world.
  • DiscoverE guiding principles:
    • None of us is as strong as all of us
    • Access for all
    • United voice
    • The engineering design process brings out the engineer in each of us
    • Mentors and role models are crucial to attract and retain people in engineering
• Major funding for DiscoverE’s Future City Competition comes from the Bechtel Corporation, Bentley Systems Inc., Shell Energy, PMIEF, and the Overdeck Family Foundation. Additional program support is provided by Linde Engineering, Pentair Foundation, and the United Engineering Foundation.
• Future City, a STEM program, is reaching girls and underserved students:
  • 48% of participants are girls.
  • 39% of participating students are from underrepresented populations.
  • 43% of participating schools are Title I schools.
• Future City students learn the value of math, science, and more:
  • 85% of students reported that Future City helped them see that math and science are important to their future
  • 89% of students said Future City helped them appreciate all the engineering that goes into a city.
• Student teams, along with an educator and volunteer STEM mentor, research and design a solution to a city-wide issue that changes each year. This year’s theme—Electrify Your Future—challenged students to design a 100% electrically powered city with energy generated from sources that keep their citizens and the environment healthy and safe.
• Competing teams are judged by panels of volunteers from the STEM and design communities on five deliverables including:
  • A Project Plan – where students complete a four-part plan to help them organize their project,
  • A City Essay – in which teams have 1,500 words to describe their futuristic city and solutions to the Climate Change challenge,
  • A City Model – with only a $100 budget, teams creatively repurpose recycled materials to build a scale model of their city,
  • A City Presentation and Q&A session– where teams have up to seven minutes to present their city,
• The top prize at the Finals is $7,500 for the five-member team’s STEM program, plus a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, awarded by Bentley Systems. Second place is awarded a $5,000 prize for the organization’s STEM program, provided by Shell. The third prize is $2,000 for the organization’s STEM program, provided by Bechtel Corporation. The 4th and 5th place teams each receive $750 for their organization’s STEM program, provided by NCEES.
• Regional competitions will be held in January 2024. 
• In 2017-18, Future City received a prestigious national award for being a leading engineering education program. It was recognized as the “Most Innovative Hands-On Project” by US2020 and co-founding sponsors, Chevron and Tata Consultancy Services, for its achievements and innovations in STEM education and its accessibility to underrepresented youth. In 2016, Future City received the Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction from the Turner Construction Company and the National Building Museum. Future City and was also honored in 2015 as the grand prize winner of a $100,000 award in the UL (Underwriters Laboratories Inc.) Innovative Education Award program (ULIEA).

For more information: visit www.DiscoverE.org and www.FutureCity.org. Contact Executive Director & CEO Kathy Renzetti at Kathy@DiscoverE.org.