Project LEAD 2023 Recap
Every year Project by Project NYC hosts Project LEAD (Leaders Empowering Action Day), a 1-day hackathon-style case competition that brings together an interdisciplinary group of professionals, creatives, and problem solvers to solve a challenge statement from our beneficiary partner. This year’s beneficiary partner is Chinatown Youth Initiatives (CYI), an organization with the mission of empowering NYC youth and addressing the evolving needs of Chinatowns, Asian Americans, and underserved communities. CYI creates a safe and supportive environment for high school and college students through their programming to inspire them to become our future leaders.
This year’s challenge statement from CYI was the following: “CYI is launching an idea incubator program to fuel students and young professionals to develop impactful ideas for the community. They are looking for guidance on driving the program’s success by redefining its brand strategy for marketing, social media, recruitment, and awareness.” The goal of Project LEAD is to help CYI generate ideas, increase awareness of community issues, and spur the development of new public-private partnerships.
On Saturday June 24th from 10 am - 4 pm, five teams gathered at CrossCountry Consulting in NYC to tackle CYI’s problem statement. CYI representatives at the event included Board Chair Winnie Huang, Fundraising Chair Jeremy Tsai, and Vice Chair Audrey Pan. CYI provided additional details on the goals of their pilot program, the planning roadmap, target audiences, and constraints. The event started with a 30 minute info session, followed by the teams breaking out into their groups. The teams worked for the next two hours, diligently coming up with solutions before breaking for lunch. Thank you to Village Square Pizza and Vita Coco for sponsoring lunch for the participants!
Each team then had 10 minutes to present with 2 minutes of Q&A. The teams were scored based on how creative, feasible, competent, and impactful their proposals were. The winning team was called “The Winners,” consisting of Sean Kuo, Tiffany Bair, Mia Bahr, Andy Tien, Alvin Wong, and Bonnie Chen. Each received a $40 Amazon gift card and free ticket to PbP’s annual testing benefit, Plate by Plate for this year.
Overall, the event not only provided participants with significant insight into CYI’s mission and programs but also enabled participants to experience what goes into making a lasting impact in our local community. Participants were able to learn about how problem-solving differs with non-profits, many of which have to operate with constrained resources. And most of all, they had fun while doing it!