Hawaii will again host representatives from the 21 APEC countries in February.These young delegates are poised to be future world leaders.
APEC is headed back to Hawaii to launch an inaugural education program for students.
"So we decided what we'd do is start with 40 students but they want to build to 300,” said Bernice Bowers of Inovi Group.
The Institute for APEC Collaborative Education has just announced the launch of an annual education conference to be held in Hawaii.
"To promote not only technology in the class rooms but introducing APEC students to project based learning and applying technology to solving the world's problems,” said Bowers.
Like the leaders from the 21 APEC countries students will be hand selected from those same regions and will come to Honolulu for the inaugural conference next month. They will include high school juniors, seniors and college students.
"Gives them an idea of what's happening in the world and that they have something to offer,” said Bowers.
The five day conference will assign the participants to teams, the delegates will work with companies in different fields and try to come up with solutions to real life problems.
"What happens then is they come back in May, June and July to be interns in these organizations and APEC is covering a lot of their costs while they are interns,” said Bowers.
In turn local businesses benefit from the student conference too.
"In parallel we also have opportunities for businesses who provide e-learning solutions and who provide technology that assists with career and technical fields,” said Bowers.
The conference will take place here for the next five years and is aimed at helping to shape the future of Hawaii's economy and future leaders.
