CITEDAL

Inspiring and cultivating students through the use of technology, engineering, and design.

Who are we and what do we do?

CITEDAL stands for "Centralizing Integration of Technology, Engineering, and Design for American Life." We plan to engage high school students with our program. CITEDAL is dedicated to inspiring and cultivating students to be creative and explore themselves by innovating meaningful projects that can solve major problems in our society. As many of these career options are in high occupational demand, students will gain insightful experiences. They will be able to write their experiences on their resumes and will benefit themselves in opening more career opportunities based on the skills that they will learn.

How it works

Students will learn to problem solve and collaborate while engaging in events such as Starterhacks and other technology-oriented opportunities. They will be given tasks and problem questions from previous years of certain exhibitions. We will pay for the transportation of bussing to such events. The program will occur during or after school every week, supervised by a supporting and volunteering teacher. Students will practice brainstorming and forming new ideas to solve major problems in our society via technology, engineering and or design. A percentage of the funds will go to the school for the reason that the students will be using school assets (computers, technology, etc.). We will annually self-host competition events for every student who is partaking in the program. They are encouraged to attend all trips and events, including Regionals and Nationals. If they have proven themselves to the judges in Regionals, they will be accepted to continue on to Nationals. Selected winners will be granted a tuition scholarship. Students must pay a $20 fee to participate in this program. Backed by some sponsors.

Challenges that we faced

Some obstacles included the funding that the program would need in order to survive. We wanted the program to be affordable and appealing to the students, the school, and to the general public. We also did not want to expand our programs too far out: keeping it all within Northern America allows better control of events and business decisions. Making these incentives while planning to stay well-funded was a bit troublesome. However, we think that we overcame a few of these issues.