On September 28-30, 2016, InnovATE participated in The Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit, hosted by Making Cents International in Arlington, VA. The summit brought together private sector companies, foundations, development agencies, government agencies, NGOs, and academic/research institutions in order to increase the impact, scale and sustainability of their youth economic opportunities programming, policies, and partnerships.

Patty Neiner and Ruth Mendum of Penn State presented new InnovATE gender training modules. The modules will help teachers and facilitators to engage youth in gender-based discussion of agricultural areas. These online teaching tools show teachers how to challenge youth to critically analyze whether they are basing judgement of tasks, skills and responsibilities on sex or gender norms. The goal of  training for youth is to enable them to consider career paths primarily by interest and skill rather than being limited by an internalized or societal gender bias. The full set of modules will also be featured on Agrilinks in the coming year.