Smart City team was invited to create a panel of high school students for Rice University's Black Houston Symposium to share their perspectives on DEI. The symposium was held on March 23rd - 24th at The African American History Research Center, Gregory Campus, and Rice University's Fondren Library.

The symposium was designed to provide a forum for community members and scholars to come together and discuss how the political, economic, and social landscapes of Houston impact Afro-Diasporic communities.

The team came up with the idea of organizing a hackathon to ask students to present solutions to the following prompt: Develop a financially sustainable model for supporting entrepreneurship ventures of young adults in Houston, specifically those launched by underrepresented groups.

 

56 students and 14 teams participated in the hackathon and it was judged by experts in the field of DEI along with the leadership of the Black Houston Symposium.