For many youth, walking to school means stepping over broken bottles, weaving through abandoned lots, and passing graffiti-littered storefronts.  The physical environment reflects the cognitive reality: lack of resources and little hope of opportunities or a positive outcome from individual effort.  For the city, this kind of neighborhood is a problem.  For the youth, it’s home.

We asked the question: What if that could change?

Imagined Communities is our response. Imagined Communities is an innovative program designed to equip disadvantaged and underserved youth with the technical, cognitive, and emotional tools they need to envision and create change for themselves and their communities. The project engages students with their communities as agents of positive change through the problem solving of real-life questions.

Problem solving is at the heart of success in life whether it’s an individual or a community.  Experience shows that effective solutions must come from within. Imagined Communities is a vehicle to bridge the community and preparedness initiatives by engaging the energy and talent of community youth.  The program engages students in the development of community planning  by having them synthesize community feedback and realize solutions using 3D rendering tools, virtual mapping and augmented reality information distribution.

Technical and developmental skills are learned while the youth address the real world problems, from disaster preparedness planning and education to supporting local economic activity.