Price students advise Riverside and win $5,000 at Sunstone Economic Development Challenge
The winning team – Hilda Aguilar-Jurado, Vanessa Bautista, Oscar Cisco and Montserrat Pineda – worked with the City of Riverside to address a growing misalignment between the skills of its workforce and the needs of local employers. (Photo: Meet Kanaiyalal Kavathiya)
By Christian Hetrick, USC Price
Four students from the USC Price School of Public Policy won first place and $5,000 at the Sunstone Economic Development Challenge, a competition supported by Sunstone Management that tasks students with helping local governments create jobs in their communities.
The winning team – Hilda Aguilar-Jurado, Vanessa Bautista, Oscar Cisco and Montserrat Pineda – worked with the City of Riverside to address a growing misalignment between the skills of its workforce and the needs of local employers.
“The most effective economic development strategies make sure that the people already in the community are positioned to benefit from the opportunities their city brings in,” said Oscar Cisco, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student. “That’s what we focused on with this project – connecting residents to the growth happening around them.”
The team recommended building a coordinated workforce development system anchored in high-demand sectors, such as healthcare and biotechnology. They also suggested policies that support industry growth and reduce barriers to development to generate demand for local workers. In addition, the students said the city should seek to strengthen partnerships between employers, education providers, and workforce organizations.
“Throughout this Economic Development Challenge, our team was able to put what we learned at USC into practice,” said Aguilar-Jurado, an MPA student and the project’s team lead. “We designed and launched a preliminary survey to gather data from local businesses to better understand workforce needs across key sectors in Riverside. We delivered recommendations that were both actionable and innovative, grounded in rigorous research and strong collaboration, leveraging Riverside’s strengths to drive further economic growth.”
The Sunstone Economic Development Challenge was established with a five-year, $162,500 grant from Sunstone Management, a private capital firm in Southern California that invests in diverse, early stage technology entrepreneurs.
The program was created in partnership with the USC City/County Management Fellowship (CMF). CMF is supported by a board of city and county managers who provide leadership, professional advice and financial stipends to USC Price School students transitioning from the academic world to jobs in local government.
“This challenge pushed me to move beyond a student mindset and start thinking more like a professional,” said Bautista, a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student. “By grounding our work in data, we were able to build a solid foundation and develop more credible, well-supported recommendations.”
“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to gain real-world experience in the field of economic development,” added Pineda, a MPA student. “My teammates and I were able to draw on what we’ve learned both in the classroom and throughout our careers to develop a proposal focused on building up a resilient community.”
For more photos of the competition, see the USC Price School’s Flikr page.