The initiative will allow pupils and students to take part in the 'Future Infrastructure Star' challenge, which offers a cash prize of US$5,000 (£3,600) to the winners and their participation at Bentley's Year in Infrastructure 2021 conference.
The international competition is open to colleges, technical institutes, universities, secondary schools and homeschooled students and provides a chance to work on various elements of modelling, designing, scheduling and visualisation tools. It will also offer access to Bentley software, learning material and other resources such as insights from leading professionals and current engineering students.
The programme is currently only available in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Ireland and Lithuania, although there are plans to open it up to the United States, Canada, Mexico, Latin America and India in the summer.
Students and educators from around the globe can register on the company’s Education portal and connect to infrastructure organisations and resources. The program offers full access to learning licences of over 40 of Bentley’s applications, including ContextCapture, MicroStation and OpenRoads Designer.
The inaugural Future Infrastructure Star Challenge is divided into two stages – conceptualisation and design & visualisation. In stage one, students are invited to submit their ideas for “a next big infrastructure project” in any of the following categories: road and rail, building and facilities, water and wastewater, cities and mapping, and power generation.
The top 20 judged projects from Stage 1 will each win US$500, with the top 10 projects moving on to Stage 2. Here, each such entry may take advantage of opportunities to work with infrastructure professionals, and/or to attend masterclasses with Bentley experts, to bring their ideas to life using Bentley applications. In addition to being announced and introduced at the Year in Infrastructure 2021 Conference, the winner of the Future Infrastructure Star Challenge 2010 will receive a cash prize of US$5,000 and recognition in Bentley’s 2021 Infrastructure Yearbook.
Vinayak Trivedi, vice president of Bentley Education, said, “We want to make the Bentley Education portal the place where students can go to learn about and become inspired to make infrastructure engineering their career choice. The goal of the programme is to help students who are passionate about infrastructure to get a jump-start on a fulfilling career. The Future Infrastructure Star Challenge 2021 provides an opportunity for them to be creative and innovative in project designs for improving the quality of life and positively changing the world.”
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