100,000 Strong in the Americas: Leveraging Innovation Grants for Student Mobility Programs

100,000 Strong in the Americas (100K Strong) is the dynamic public-private sector collaboration between the U.S. Department of State, Partners of the Americas, and public and private sector entities that provides unique grant opportunities to create new student exchange and training programs to higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Western Hemisphere. 100K Strong grants strengthen institutional capacity, increase student mobility, enhance regional education cooperation, and contribute to workforce development to ensure a greener, more inclusive, prosperous, and climate-resilient Hemisphere. The Innovation Fund stimulates connectivity and collaboration between higher education institutions throughout the Americas and provides students with more opportunities to work together and gain new skills.

Since its inception in January 2014, 100K Strong has awarded 321 grants to teams of 585 higher education institutions from 26 countries in the Western Hemisphere region and 49 U.S. states. The partnerships developed have given students more opportunities to learn and work together in a variety of academic fields in countries throughout the region. 100K Strong inspires U.S. colleges and universities, including technical, vocational, and community colleges, to team up with HEIs in the rest of the Western Hemisphere to compete for grants that help to develop sustainable exchange programs that provide students with technical, linguistic, and cultural skills – critical for today’s global economy. 100K Strong grants also build sustainable higher education partnerships that lead to long-term engagement.

The new 100K Strong Climate (100K CLIMA) and Inclusive Education (100K I.E.) Initiatives announced at the ninth Summit of the Americas in June 2022 aim to expand partnership opportunities for a diversity of HEIs to create innovative, inclusive partnerships that will create and implement climate-focused education exchange and training programs in the Americas. These new 100K Strong initiatives build on the U.S. Department of State’s collaboration with minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and support bilateral agreements on social inclusion and racial equality with countries in the Western Hemisphere.  The goals of this panel presentation are to provide information, best practices, tips, and current and upcoming grant opportunities to international education professionals to leverage these grant opportunities to enhance bilateral and multi-lateral partnerships between the United States and the other countries of the Western Hemisphere.

The 100K Strong team will provide an overview of the initiative and the public/private sector partnership model, while representatives from past winning Brazilian institutions will share best practices and lessons learned on developing grant proposals, program implementation, and collaborating with other institutions. Attendees will learn from the first-hand experiences of these education professionals on using 100K Strong grants to increase student and faculty mobility and strengthen higher education partnerships in the Americas. Time will be allotted at the end of the session for an interactive Q&A discussion. With the panel presentation and the Q&A session, attendees will gain a better understanding of 100,000 Strong in the Americas and how to leverage these grants to increase higher education partnerships and student mobility in the region.