to seek education, employment, and a better life elsewhere. They constitute a segment of the community population that is mostly absent from the community’s growth process and productivity.

Many young people feel disengaged and disconnected from the pulse of the community. They are often intelligent, creative and talented, but lack the motivation that is stimulated by productive experiences. Many do not leave because they have nowhere to go, or because they lack the means.

The Solution and Implementation Plan
Young people inherit the problems, and they are the solution.
MetaYouth Enterprises will be a collaborative enterprise of young people worldwide working to help their communities become environmentally and economically sustainable by providing needed community services in an action-training work setting.

Owned and operated by employees, receiving training from experts, MetaYouth Enterprises will be sustainably funded by the MetaYouth Music Challenge, a call to musicians of any age, nationality, culture or genre to produce music about and for young people and the world they are inheriting. The music will be sold through the MetaYouth Music Challenge website.

This is a proposal to engage youth who have not had positive experiences on which to base their interests, and youth who do not have a clear idea of a future path. It is a plan for the employment of youth in a community based education and training program to provide important community-sustaining services that can help the community meet the demands of survival and growth in healthy and supportive ways.

Employees will receive training and guidance in the uses of GIS and other progressive technologies, proposal development, data management, systems thinking and problem solving, and reporting and product delivery, to provide important community-sustaining services that can help the community meet the demands of growth and environmental changes in healthy and supportive ways.

MetaYouth Enterprises will focus on these primary, inter-related areas of need - Water Security, Food Security, Energy Security, and Health:
1. Comprehensive Community Climate Change Profile (C4P) – assessment of community environmental impacts and carbon footprint; planning and implementation of sustainable solutions and economical technologies for shelter, energy, water, and solid waste reduction and efficiency improvement; intergenerational education and community awareness-building services.
2. Watershed Assessment, Planning and Management – comprehensive inventory of synergistic intrinsic attributes (biological, hydrological, geological) and energetic instrumental uses (habitation, agricultural, livestock, forestry, industrial, transportation, recreation); prioritization of problems and implementation of economically viable measures that unite watershed stakeholders in restoring healthy watershed balance, achieving sustainable watershed health, and increasing biodiversity.
3. Sustainable Agriculture – inventory of arable lands; modeling of potential, current and projected local agricultural production, practices and problems; promotion of efficient, low-impact, erosion controlling, and soil-building techniques; physical, technical and clerical assistance for farmers who need help achieving, or improving, economic viability.
4. Community Health – composite modeling of health risks and issues; identification of low-cost, efficient, intergenerational, and culturally sensitive health-building measures; health education and awareness services; assistance to health providers.
Young people, without higher education experience, can provide many of the services communities need, sensitively and economically. Youth can make significant contributions to long-term community water, energy and food security through the quantification, calculation, modeling and facilitation of efficient uses, and the explication of potential societal and economic benefits.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology will be used for assessment and management in all areas addressed. Customized community GIS projects allow for the expanding, refinement, and sharing of geospatial data related to community projects.

The MetaYouth Enterprises and MetaYouth Music Challenge World Wide Web presence will become an important medium for education and sharing of project information and results, leading to expanding opportunities for services around the globe.

As models and methods are developed and demonstrated in the pilot communities, they will be exported and implemented by employed youth in similar organizational structures in other communities internationally.

Developing branches of the organization will operate in a networked information environment, collaborating on the improvement and refinement of methods and practices through shared experiences, minimizing costs, and maximizing potential.

By creating an organization that functions to train, employ, involve and empower young people to identify and provide needed community services, MetaYouth Enterprises will

1. Enhance youth development through multiple skill development, systems thinking, talent expression, and interest stimulation;
2. Provide educational, skill-building work experiences that enhance self-esteem and promote creativity;
3. Provide services that are increasingly needed by their communities;
4. Help build lasting intergenerational relationships between participants and community members;
5. Enhance participants’ understanding of community issues and needs and empower them to make a difference;
6. Help them to better identify their future educational and career goals, and improve their prospects for future education and employment.

After two years of satisfactory employment, employees would be able to choose between pursuing further education based on developed interests, with the financial help of participating institutions; staying within the growing MetaYouth Enterprises organization as trainers and facilitators; and pursuing other employment based on skills developed.

MetaYouth Enterprises will pilot three development models within three geographically dispersed and socio-economically different communities – tribal, rural and urban.

Financing the Solution Sustainably
The MetaYouth Music Challenge challenges musicians, of any age, gender, nationality, culture, or musical genre, to create music about or for young people; about the relationships that young people have with their communities and the environment; and about the emerging hopeful and inspiring options for a healthy and sustainable future that are being expressed world-wide.

Through multi-media advertising and marketing, MetaYouth Enterprises will issue the Challenge, and the website will act as a commerce portal for music purchases and donations. The most popular music raises the most money for MetaYouth programs.

The official website has multiple functions and purposes:
1. It is a fully functional Portal for the Purchase of Music.
2. The buyers have the option of choosing whether their payment goes to the general MetaYouth Enterprises Fund, or to an individual MetaYouth project.
3. It is Educational, a clearinghouse for the dissemination of information related to MetaYouth projects.
4. It has a GIS/geospatial component, offering current mapping of youth, community, environmental, scientific and technology information and data, money raised, and organization efforts.
5. MetaYouth Radio – webcasting MetaYouth Music, educational programming, interviews, MetaYouth Concerts, MetaYouth Blog
6. Promotion of MetaYouth Music recording compilation sales.

Revenue generated from the sale of music and from MetaYouth concerts and compilation recording sales will be used by MetaYouth Enterprises to develop MetaYouth programs in pilot communities first, and then in other communities throughout the world. In communities that can afford to pay for services provided by MetaYouth Enterprises, services will be contracted for an affordable fee. Organization revenue will be used to leverage grants and donations for further expansion.

A rotating board of leading progressive thinkers and implementers of focus area solutions will advise, review and assess projects, and contribute to planning and expansion strategies, based on needs and effectiveness.

Who
Born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Mark Ericson had lived in five different continents by the age of fifteen. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in 1980, majoring in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. Post-graduate credits in education and technology courses from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, The University of New Mexico, New Mexico Highlands University, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

To the best of his knowledge, Mark Ericson is the sole originator of this idea. He has taught Environmental Science in the Community Based Education Model (CBEM) at the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) since 1996, and has worked as a science instructor at SFIS since 1987.

If awarded this prize, he would take a leave of absence from SFIS to set up the MetaYouth Enterprises and MetaYouth Music Challenge websites, assemble a team to implement three pilot projects, and assemble a rotating board of expert advisors to help facilitate planning and implementation.

In 1999, SFIS was one of twenty finalists for the “Innovations in American Government” Award for the work that was being done in CBEM.

An article about the work being done in CBEM can be viewed here:
http://www97.intel.com/odyssey/Story.aspx?storyID=309

In the summer of 2005, he presented a paper “Using GIS in High School Community Based Education” at the ESRI Annual GIS Users Conference. The paper can be viewed here:
http://gis.esri.com/library/userconf/educ05/papers/pap1646.pdf

In the winter of 2005 – 2006, Mark was the first recipient of the ESRI GIS Hero Award. The article can be read at this link: http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/winter0506articles/science-instructor.html

SFIS was one of approximately 160 winners of the Special Achievement in GIS Award at the ESRI 2006 International Users Conference out of approximately 200,000 sites world-wide. A podcast interview with Mark Ericson can be heard here:
http://www.esri.com/news/podcasts/speaker_series.html