In 2019, S&P Global launched an inaugural youth STEM challenge along with the New York Academy of Sciences’ (NYAS) Global STEM Alliance to find new uses for technology and science to power progress on today’s global challenges. The challenge tasked self-selecting Junior Academy teams to create novel solutions for post-disaster assistance.  

The S&P Global Foundation sponsored the 2020 challenge, “Cybersecurity in the Age of IoT,” to address rising cybersecurity issues associated with Internet of Things devices, ultimately engaging 39 teams from 37 countries. More than 25 S&P Global volunteer mentors virtually coached 180+  students over a period of five months.

Five teenagers from Guatemala, Hungary, India, the U.S. and Vietnam designed an innovative disaster relief app that won the 2019 challenge, beating out 40 others with their smartphone-based community survey that enables disaster recovery services to target support where needed. They used lessons from Hurricane Katrina to inform their app, designed to collect information about vulnerable residents’ financial and job status, living conditions and mental health. One team member, Luis Alvarez from Guatemala, lent personal experience to the project, having fled an erupting volcano near his home.

Mentor Dushyanth Sekhar, Head of Data Transformation at S&P Global Market Intelligence was excited to work with the students. “I was very impressed by how passionate, clear thinking, organized and technically skilled the students were,” he said. “The theme of the challenge,post-disaster assistance, is complex. With technology changing so fast, it is critical that companies like ours invest in programs that prepare the next generation of talent for the workplace. It was also very useful for me, as a manager, to hear firsthand how talented young people work and think.”