Knight Foundation supports Mobilize.org to help bring community-based, millennial-led engagement efforts to five communities. Over the weekend, participants gathered in Charlotte for Mobilize.org's Millennial Civic Engagement Summit to discuss the challenges young people face in engaging in civic issues. As part of the summit's award competition, participants proposed solutions to those challenges. The following was written by Mobilize.org staff. There’s only one word to describe the energy in the room during the project presentations at the Millennial Civic Engagement Summit this weekend: Electric. Presenters made impassioned pitches for their ideas, eliciting enthusiastic applause, laughter, shouts of encouragement and, in some cases, tears, from the summit audience. “Feel like I’m in a room full of super heroes!!!” tweeted participant @Tice1Mic. The top five project ideas, proposed and voted on via by summit participants, won a share of $25,000 and a year of expert support from Mobilize.org to implement the projects on campus, in communities, or online. Ideas were judged on potential social impact, creativity and innovation, sustainability, and the use of new and social media. Project proposals ranged from a national initiative to have trains filled with civic-minded millennials travel across America, holding whistle-stop trainings in communities along the way, to a center in Raleigh that activates volunteers to help causes in the local community. The project with the highest score at the summit was The Artist Spring, which aims to use the arts as a means of activating people in their communities. Hannah Hasan, one of the project co-creators, began her proposal with an impassioned spoken word poem. “Moved to tears listening to my peers share their ideas at #MCESummit,” tweeted @Hmass12, another summit participant, during Hasan’s performance. The five winning projects, in order of highest scores received, are: ·     The Artist Spring (North Carolina): This project will encourage all types of performance artists to utilize their medium to make a difference. First, we will a have website that would allow artists to upload videos, submit blogs and discuss the arts and civic engagement. This will be a social network that encourages peaceful, meaningful change. Locally, we will plan a fun stage show where various artists will perform for their family, friends, and neighbors about topics that encourage voting and civic engagement. We  also will have canvassers there to register voters, and  provide information about voting and future programs and opportunities to stay involved.