Officials at The Pantheon are looking to engage young people through their inaugural Innovation Challenge.
Open to high school-age youngsters, the contest asks area students to team up and pitch to a panel of judges a practical way in which quality of life can be improved in Knox County.
“We say all the time that we want more young people to stay here, but I don’t know that we often enough ask for their input,” said Nichole Like, executive director of the Pantheon: A Business and Innovation Theater at 428 Main St. “So this is a way to get them involved, ask them, ‘What kind of community do you want to see?
“ ‘What kind of community would attract you and keep you here?’ ”
So far, Like said the Pantheon has six teams signed on, although they are willing to take more. The contest will be held on Dec. 8.
The goal, Pantheon officials say, is “to create meaningful opportunities for young entrepreneurs” all while “creating a hub of intellectual curiosity,” too.
The challenge presented to these Innovation Challenge teams is to find ways rural communities like this one can retain “a young, vibrant and talented workforce,” a press release states, as well as the “key components and resources that have to exist in order to make our community a place people want to come work, play and engage.”
“The brain drain, it’s an ongoing challenge in our community, in a lot of communities like ours,” Like said. “We’ve seen consistent loss of population now for nearly 30 years.
“So this is a way for us to drill down into these issues, ask young, bright people what it might take to keep them here.”
Teams must have between 3-5 participants and an adult sponsor, such as a club leader or teacher.
Teams will come to the Pantheon on Dec. 8 prepared to make their pitches, but first, they will get to spend some time with entrepreneurs from Purdue University’s own co-working space, The Foundry, to fine-tune their presentations and ideas.
“Then they’ll have some time, about two hours, to tweak their projects,” Like said.
The teams will then begin delivering brief 5-minute presentations about their ideas to improve quality of life here to a panel of five judges. There, too, will be five minutes left for questions.
The presentations must have visual aids, and all of it will be centered around how to make the community more attractive to young people.
The presentations are expected to get underway about 12:30 p.m., Like said, and the public is invited — if not encouraged — to attend.
“We certainly hope people from the community come,” she said. “The public is welcome. Giving these formal presentations will be great training for these young people.”
Each team, too, is learning more about the county in which they live, Like said, as they were given local data, things like population numbers, economic drivers, and common health issues, to name a few.
“They are getting all of that raw data to study, so they are being educated about some of the issues facing our community, too,” she said.
The winning team of the Innovation Challenge will receive $500; the sponsor, too, will receive $500 to be spent as a classroom grant, Like said. They also will get 6-month memberships to the Pantheon.
The second place team will receive $250, the third place team $100.
“Creativity is going to be a big factor in determining who wins,” Like said, “but feasibility, too.
“They might say, ‘We need to build an amusement park here,’ and while that’s great, grand even, it’s not feasible and probably not very relevant either.”
Too, Like said they’d like to make this an annual event, much like their popular Ag Tech Showcase.
“But this of course will be youth-centered,” she said, “because that is one of our primary strategic objectives.”
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