What did the future look like to students 25 years ago?

Kevin Milans and his teammates entered the first-ever Future City Competition 25 years ago. “I played SimCity growing up so I thought playing it for a school competition would be really fun.”

The first year, teams were challenged to design an energy-efficient city with a backup energy supply powered by an alternate source. “Doing the Future City Competition taught me real world environmental issues and solutions that are still relevant today.”

“Planning for the future is vitally important. We need generations that follow us to have the engineering skills necessary to solve challenging social issues that we are facing and will face. That’s why developing these skills in kids through programs like Future City is critical.”

Kevin and his teammates never thought they would win the first competition, they even went to visit the White House during while President Bill Clinton was in office. “We didn’t even think about the chance of winning, we were just having fun together.” Kevin is now an assistant professor of Mathematics at West Virginia University.

Photo courtesy of IEEE-USA article by Chris McManes (http://insight.ieeeusa.org/insight/content/ieeeusa/253918)