Sometimes, a successful future lies not in a high school robotics competition or a college hackathon, but rather in the knowledge passed down from grandparent to child to grandchild.
Officials with California State University, Northridge’s Global HSI Equity Innovation Hub are hoping to elevate the power of that intergenerational knowledge with the launch of “Culture is Currency,” the hub’s inaugural national STEAM innovation challenge, with 18 Hispanic-serving institutions across seven states, including California, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and Florida.
CSUN President Erika D. Beck said she was proud CSUN was serving as an anchor for a national network of HSI partners across multiple states and regions.
“Together, we are connecting learners, families, educators, community leaders and industry to the skills, tools and opportunities that will help them shape the future of work—through a shared innovation movement that is nationally connected and locally rooted,” Beck said.
The challenge invites learners to recognize culture, creativity, lived experiences, talents and family and community knowledge as assets for information.
“Culture is Currency starts with what learners already bring,” said Amanda Quintero, equity innovation officer for the hub. “The challenge engages college students, recent college graduates, adult learners and K-12 learners through hands-on exploration, career-connected learning and project creation — helping them build from cultural capital toward skills, opportunity and community wealth.”
CSUN’s BetaCulture Innovators are already demonstrating what the challenges can look like in practice. For “Create: Your Side Hustle,” CSUN student Matthew Garcia developed Dulce Route, a browser-based tool designed to strengthen community entrepreneurship by helping paleteros, eloteros and other neighborhood street vendors stay visible in an increasingly digital economy. For “Document: STEAM & Dreams (Sueños),” CSUN student Kevin Rojas developed TableRoots, a digital recipe platform that preserves the stories, memories and cultural traditions connected to family recipes, turning food and family history into a living archive of cultural knowledge and community connection.
“Already, these projects are showing learners the power of connecting intergenerational knowledge and community wisdom with innovation,” Quintero said. “They are using their own brilliance, lived experience and technology to strengthen community entrepreneurship, preserve cultural knowledge and turn what they already carry into new forms of value, opportunity and community wealth.”
Three regional HSI innovation hubs and 15 program collaborators are bringing the challenge to campuses, schools, classrooms and communities in seven states. Together, participating institutions collectively serve more than 600,000 students and are connected to alumni networks numbering in the million, “creating significant potential to extend Culture is Currency through technology, financial knowledge, creative tools, mentorship and career opportunities,” Quintero said.
Quintero said currency is more than money.
“It includes the knowledge, stories, relationships, creativity, technology and ideas that create value,” she said. “Culture is Currency helps learners recognize cultural capital as a foundation for innovation, while building financial agency, future-ready STEAM skills and connections between community wisdom and emerging technology.”
At the center of the challenge, Quintero said, is the guiding question: “How can we transform cultural value into opportunity for ourselves and our communities?”
College students, recent graduates, adult learners and K-12 learners are being asked to investigate real-world questions and create projects rooted in culture, community and lived experience — from venture, films and podcasts to digital maps, financial exploration, design concepts and community-centered solutions.
The five challenges include “Create: Your Side Hustle,” create a side hustle that adds value; “Activate: Money (Dinero) Dares,” activating new possibilities through financial knowledge and intentional habits; “Document: STEAM and Dreams (Sueños),” documenting culture as an innovation asset; “Uplift: Our Community is Wealth,” redefining wealth by uplifting the strengths and assets that already exist within one’s culture, family and community, and “Transform: Money (Dinero) Remix,” shaping the future through financial choices that reflect what one values most.
Quintero said the challenges offer participants distinct ways to build financial agency, connect cultural wisdom across generations, redefine wealth and shape the future. They were inspired by Apple’s Challenge Based Learning framework.
“Apple serves as a core technology and learning partner through its community education initiative, bringing Challenge Based Learning, Apple technology, professional learning and creative tools into the broader Culture is Currency learning ecosystem,” she said.
Culture is Currency has also teamed up with SUMA Wealth to launch a free “What’s Your Side Hustle” bootcamp. The six-module, skills-based experience is designed to strengthen financial agency, cultivate a “side-hustle” mindset and help learners develop AI-powered business plans and pitches.
Other partners include the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Latino Donor Collaborative, Autodesk’s Design & Make Ecosystem, Apogee Electronics and the HSI Innovation Hub’s BetaCulture Innovators, as well as several industry mentors.
The challenge’s participants will be able to access workshops, financial empowerment resources, technology learning, peer and industry mentorship, coaching and technology and creative tools, as well as opportunities for national recognition, awards or seed funding.
The Culture is Currency Challenge will culminate with national innovation showcases across the country, and challenge finalists will be announced during the Hub’s fourth annual convening, “Innovation Belongs to the People: Where Community Shapes the Future,” from Feb. 27-28, 2027, hosted with Miami Dade College in Miami.
Launched at CSUN in 2022, the Global Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Equity Innovation Hub is a national innovation network connecting students, educators, institutions, industry and communities to technology, career-connected learning and opportunities to create, lead and shape the future. Through a regional-to-national ecosystem of HSI partners, the Hub advances emerging technology, workforce innovation, creative practice and community-centered learning with expanding pathways from education to careers, entrepreneurship and economic opportunity.
One of the largest universities in the country, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) is an urban, comprehensive university that delivers award-winning undergraduate and graduate programs to more than 37,000 students annually and counts over 430,000 alumni who fuel the region’s economy. Since its founding in 1958, CSUN has made a significant and long-term economic impact on California, generating nearly $1.9 billion and nearly 12,000 jobs each year. CSUN is a Hispanic Serving Institution and a recipient of an Excelencia in Education seal, ranking amongst the top 20 in the nation in graduating Latinx students. More than 70 percent of CSUN students are first-generation college students, and 60 percent come from historically underrepresented groups. Money magazine consistently ranks CSUN among the nation’s “most transformative” colleges for setting students on the path to higher career earnings.