Future City 2026

Event: Discover E’s Future City Competition - NJ Regional Event
Challenge: Farm to Table
When: Saturday, January 17, 2026 from 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM (times approximate)
Where: Rutgers University – Livingston-Piscataway Campus

For years, PMINJ volunteers have supported Future City.

Future City's mission is to provide a fun and exciting educational engineering program for 6th, 7th & 8th grade students that combine a stimulating engineering challenge with a “hands-on” application to present their vision of a city of the future while solving a current real-life “challenge”

Students start in the fall and present their city at the NJ Regional Competition in January. In recent years the regional competition has grown to over 500 participating students, teachers, and mentors. Feedback from both students and teachers has been exceedingly positive, with exclamations of an excellent engineering experience!

PMINJ is proud to partner with NJ Future City, and to support it on its mission to advance STEM learning in Middle Schools. You can help now by volunteering today!

Send your interest to .

Our presence includes:

• Represent PMINJ at “Meet the Professionals” session. In a Career Fair of sorts, engage students one-on-one at the PMINJ table to answer their questions about project management and what it might mean to them in the future. Also engage with them to help them identify that the Future City project started their career as a project manager.
• Serve as a presentation judge, scoring students’ models and oral presentations on campus at Rutgers. Competition Day runs from 8 to 4 with breakfast, lunch, and scheduled breaks. Judges are invited and encouraged to spend the whole day, but if you can’t, Future City will work with you to enable you to judge for those hours you can provide.
• Present Project Management 101 to event participants. Chapter members have been assigned to present to all students in small groups as they rotate through the learning events of the day. The PowerPoint presentation identifies the project management phases that the students should have experienced to deliver their projects for the competition.

See additional details from the FutureCity Coordinator
Pictures from the 2020 competition.
See pictures of PMINJ participation in past years

Be a Mentor:

1. What is a Mentor? – As a Mentor your job will be to coordinate with the team’s teacher to provide advice, guidance, and technical assistance to the students as they work on the various project deliverables. Much can be done virtually – a few hours a week. A program manual and Futurecity.org contain guidance.
   • Help students stay on task, focus on “big picture”, perfect submissions, polish their presentation and build their models.
   • Flexible commitment – typically 20 – 40 hours (much virtual) between now and January.
   • Training guides and other support are available
   • Mentoring can be done Virtually
   For more information about your role as a mentor go to:
   https://futurecity.org/participants/mentors
2. Where are Mentors Needed? - Mentors are needed at Middle Schools throughout New Jersey. More schools request help weekly. For the current list of schools, and more information on mentoring, contact: Jean Hansen, at mentor@futurecitynj.org and CC jean.g.hansen@gmail.com
3. When? – Mentors are Urgently Needed for many Middle schools now through early January. It’s never too late to start supporting a school.
4. How to Start – Register on line at www.futurecity.org/register then contact: Jean Hansen, at mentor@futurecitynj.org and CC jean.g.hansen@gmail.com to get paired with the Middle School of your choice.
5. What if I don’t have time now to Mentor? – No problem! Other volunteer opportunities also exist for Judging at the Competition Day – Register as a judge or volunteer online at www.futurecity.org/register then contact: Andrea Almeida and Alba Serrano at judging@futurecitynj.org, Andrea.almeida@pseg.com and albagraceserrano@gmail.com; or Silvia Santos, at competition_day@futurecitynj.org to learn more.
6. May I Share this Invitation – Absolutely! The need is urgent. Please share this information with friends / coworkers who may be interested in helping.

For more information on mentoring, contact: Jean Hansen, at mentor@futurecitynj.org and CC jean.g.hansen@gmail.com

Be a Judge

Judging coordinator: Andrea Almeida and Alba Serrano at judging@futurecitynj.org, Andrea.almeida@pseg.com and albagraceserrano@gmail.com; or Silvia Santos, at competition_day@futurecitynj.org to learn more.

• Remote judging of essays and other deliverables start November 10th.
• Additional Judges are needed on Competition Day.

This Year's Challenge:

Overview: Farm to Table Challenge
While humans once grew food wherever they lived, today most of our food travels to us from far away. Modern cities make it easy to get groceries from the store—but at a cost. The way we grow, package, and throw away food creates problems for our planet. In fact, about 40% of all food produced ends up wasted, even as 783 million people around the world go hungry.

Consider all the steps it takes to get food to your plate: farmers grow it, trucks move it, stores sell it, and finally, you eat it—or maybe you don’t. But wasted food doesn’t just disappear in a landfill—food waste takes up 28% of the world’s agricultural area, uses 25% of all water used by agriculture each year, and creates about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s why cities of the future need to rethink how food moves through our lives. One big idea is using the principles of circular economy along the food production pathway —a system where instead of throwing things away, we find ways to reuse, recycle, or repurpose them.

In recent years, engineers, scientists, farmers, manufacturers, and city planners are coming up with exciting new solutions like using waste products to feed livestock, designing reusable food packaging, and using smart bins that turn scraps into compost or energy. These systems don’t just eliminate waste, they protect the planet and keep communities strong.

The students’ challenge:
Design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps your citizens healthy and safe

The Students Learn to Succeed!

• Presentation Skills - Talking can be hard. The program helps to build confidence!
• Problem Solving - The program helps teach students that every problem is just waiting to be solved!
• What is Engineering - Many students don't understand what engineers do. We give students the opportunity to speak to and learn from real engineers!
• Teamwork - The program shows that no matter how hard you look, there is no I in Team!