Fostering a Culture of Innovation, Self-Disruption, Creativity

MHI’s Executive Summit to Feature FIRST® Robotics Competition Team and Ways to Introduce STEM Students to Supply Chain Careers

By Viche Thomas, MHI Career & Technical Education Program Coordinator

As part of MHI’s Career & Technical Education (CTE) program and our focus on developing the workforce of the future, we continuously look for opportunities to build awareness of the varied careers within supply chains and material handling among students of all ages.

And by all ages, we don’t limit ourselves to post-secondary students; instead, we’ve expanded our focus to students as young as kindergarten and elementary school. Because it’s never too early to engage children in the future of business and industry via today’s science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs.

That’s why, at MHI’s annual Executive Summit—held Sunday, October 14 at JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, FL—we’ll be featuring Don Bossi, president of non-profit FIRST®. The organization actively engages children from kindergarten through high school, helping them build upon their STEM knowledge with mentor-based research and team-based robotics competitions. It also offers participants the opportunity to apply for more than $80 million in college scholarships.

During his presentation, Bossi will detail how FIRST fosters the culture of innovation, self-disruption and creativity that will be needed in the next-generation workforce.

“As technology changes continuously, the workforce of the future is going to need to be able to draw upon the types of skills that enable them to be flexible, adaptable, life-long learners,” he says. “Not only does their experience on FIRST robotics teams make them technically proficient, but they also learn to collaborate, communicate and work with others to solve problems.”

Bossi describes FIRST as a public-private partnership, and notes the critical importance of industry participation in order to maximize the type of impact programs like his have on students’ academic interests and career goals.

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