Developing Youth Talent Initiative (DYTI)

The Nebraska Developing Youth Talent Initiative (DYTI) creates collaboration between Nebraska businesses and public schools, connecting young Nebraskans to learning opportunities in the workforce that can play an important role in their decision to build their careers in our state.

The intent of DYTI is to support an industry-defined approach to develop a youth talent pipeline for our state’s emerging STEM workforce, especially in Manufacturing, IT, Healthcare and Engineering occupations. Grant recipients will partner with schools to engage 7th and 8th-grade students in participation in hands-on career exploration and relevant workplace learning opportunities. Exposing this next generation of leaders to the advanced skills and knowledge required for STEM occupations encourages an expanding workforce to help Grow Nebraska.

Eligible Projects

Projects must facilitate 7th and 8th-grade student participation in hands-on STEM career exploration and exposure to STEM skills in order to increase interest and awareness of STEM occupations among area students. Priority may be given to projects with a focus on IT, manufacturing, healthcare and engineering skills. Eligible projects may be structured in a variety of ways, including (but not limited to) activities such as:

Application Review Criteria

Applications are evaluated based on the information provided in the application plus information obtained by DED staff.

DED and the review committee may preference applications and projects that also provide:

Applications are reviewed and selected by a committee of leaders from DED and the Nebraska Department(s) of Education (NDE) and Labor (NDOL). The committee will recommend projects to the DED Director for final approval.

Evaluation

DED will provide a required, standard pre and post assessment that should be given to students before and after project engagement (i.e. intervention) each academic year. Signature Projects (those awarded $50,000 or more) are required to utilize a 3rd party evaluator. Applicants may select the evaluator. (Two evaluators that applicants may want to consider are Frank Shimerdla, frank@aogrants.com, and Dick Meyers, meyerdc@unk.edu; both individuals have worked on several previous DYTI projects.)