SRP, City of Phoenix and USGS win top honors in NSF Futures Engine Workforce Challenge
Turning workforce development into regional resilience
How do you train hundreds of workers across multiple states on the real-world pressures facing their industries — from water access to energy reliability and environmental risk?
This was the challenge behind a first-of-its-kind workforce education initiative led by the NSF Futures Engine in the Southwest. From October 2024 to May 2025, the Futures Engine Workforce Challenge invited employers across Arizona, Nevada and Utah to enroll their teams in free, online courses tailored to the Southwest’s most pressing regional issues.
More 840 participants completed nearly 3,400 courses, demonstrating what’s possible when business and education work together to solve shared challenges.
Employers leading by example
Three organizations stood out for their commitment to learning and participation and are recognized as the winners:
- Salt River Project (SRP) in the large employer category
- City of Phoenix in the medium category
- USGS in the small category
Each team championed learning internally, encouraging staff to take courses that connected directly to their operations — from urban infrastructure to water management and policy. Employees at each organization completed coursework, reflecting a shared belief in the value of lifelong learning.
Connecting learning to regional priorities
The Workforce Challenge is part of the Futures Engine, a regional innovation initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to support practical solutions across the Southwest. Led by ASU, the Futures Engine focuses on applied research and workforce development in areas vital to the region’s future — including water management, energy systems and sustainable infrastructure.
In Nevada, for example, the state’s recent $1.8 million investment into WaterStart, a nonprofit advancing water technology solutions, reflects the kind of cross-sector collaboration the Futures Engine is designed to accelerate.
The need is pressing: the Southwest is projected to face a 20% shortfall in water supply by 2050, along with rising energy demand and ongoing workforce gaps in infrastructure and environmental management.
“The NSF Futures Engine Workforce Challenge surfaced a simple but powerful insight,” said Patrick Rossol-Allison, associate vice president of strategic initiatives at ASU’s Learning Enterprise. “When learning is relevant and accessible, people engage — and that engagement can translate into real local, regional and global capacity for innovation and problem-solving.”
Sustaining the momentum
ASU will continue to expand access to the course library, with a goal of reaching 6,000 learners by the end of 2025. This continued momentum builds on a clear takeaway from the challenge itself: by aligning learning with operational priorities, this year’s winners showed how workforce development can drive practical solutions across organizations and throughout the region.