The What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? student video contest continues to spread across Pennsylvania as the Philadelphia area and four other communities will inaugurate contests for the 2016-2017 school year.
Created by the Manufacturers Resource Center (MRC) in Allentown, PA in 2013, the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contests excite students to explore cool manufacturing careers and produce profiles of companies. The contest’s objective is to change students’ perceptions about manufacturing careers. Teams of students and teacher coaches receive camera equipment, software, and professional guidance as they learn to script, record, and edit their video stories. Judges in each regional contest bestow a variety of awards, and each contest features an online vote for its Viewers Choice Award.
The flagship Lehigh Valley area contest and the second-year contests in the Pittsburgh area and in Chester and Delaware counties will be joined this year by the Philadelphia Region contest along with contests in Berks and Schuylkill counties, North Central PA, South Central PA, and Cambria and Somerset counties. Online voting for all contests will be held through the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? digital platform.
The Berks County What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contest will be produced by the MRC, producer of the Lehigh Valley contest. The Philadelphia Region contest will be produced by the Manufacturing Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. The north central contest will be produced by North Central Workforce Development Board in Ridgeway, Elk County. The south central contest will be produced by MANTEC in York County. The Catalyst Connection in Pittsburgh – producer of the affiliated Explore the New Manufacturing video contest for the Pittsburgh area – will produce the contest for Cambria and Somerset counties under the same name.
The What’s So Cool About Manufacturing? contests are supported regionally by their sponsors and partners. Production support is provided by PBS39 Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, PA. Funds to develop the contests were provided in 2013 by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development’s “Discovered in PA, Developed in PA” program for a project called Lehigh Valley Skill-Up.
About the Manufacturers Resource Center
The Manufacturers Resource Center (MRC) is dedicated to creating jobs and economic opportunity in eastern Pennsylvania’s Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, and Schuylkill counties. MRC is a nonprofit organization partially funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s NIST-MEP program, as well as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development.
News Story Contact
Karen Buck, Manufacturers Resource Center
Allentown, PA, 610.628.4626