Photo by Lauren Hansen-Flaschen

The Round Robin – the latest phase of the Challenge – was held Tuesday, February 16th. Ten teams of students from throughout Penn presented their proposals for turning policy ideas into action through a civic campaign, and five were chosen to advance to the Finals. 

More than 20 civic leaders from the region, representing government agencies, academia, nonprofits, and the private sector served as judges for the competition. The one-sheets describing the projects of all ten teams can be found here.

The Finalists are:

Pennsylvania Scholars – A statewide early intervention program to increase college enrollment and graduation.
The Renewables – A green jobs initiative to attract solar panel manufacturers to the region.
Educo – A proposal to reduce re-incarceration through greater access to education in prisons.
Pennsive- A proposal to improve senior citizen access to social services and healthy food.
Land Philadelphia – A regional Land Bank initiative to improve vacant land management.

For the next four weeks, each of these five remaining student teams will be further developing their policy campaign plans for presentation to a VIP panel of judges at the Finals, which will be held on Saturday, March 20 at 9:00 AM at the Center for Architecture.  More details about the Finals can be found here.