C2I 2022: Young Innovator runner-up

The General Electric (GE) Foundation created Next Engineers with a fairly simple goal in mind: to ‘inspire, motivate and develop the next generation of curious minds’.

Launched in 2021, the programme spans four global locations – Cincinnati and Greenville in the US, Johannesburg in South Africa, and Staffordshire in the UK. Its sole intention is to increase the diversity of young people entering engineering, promoting the importance of engineers and challenging the norms of a historically white male-dominated industry.

Over the five years of the programme, it expects to reach more than 14,000 students and encourage young people to generate ideas, get hands-on with models and prototypes, test out new designs and meet real engineers – ‘bringing the subject of engineering to life’.
Its focus is on students aged 13 to 18 from underrepresented backgrounds, aiming to prove that engineering can be a career possibility for anyone. With this in mind, Next Engineers awards funding and scholarships to students to help them to pursue engineering degrees or apprenticeships.