An inclusive construction workforce isn’t only about filling roles—it’s about cultivating people who can adapt, innovate, and stay inspired to build better communities. Yet the challenge remains: while millions of new homes are needed to address rising population and housing demands, the U.S. construction industry continues to face both a talent shortage and a perception gap. Many young people don’t yet see themselves reflected in construction, even though it offers creative, technical, and entrepreneurial pathways with lasting social impact.
That’s why programs like Autodesk’s Design & Make It Real (formerly known as Make It Real) are designed to spark purpose early—helping students imagine themselves as future architects, builders, and engineers who can make tangible change in their communities.
The Urgency: Building for people and possibility
Earlier this year, the Make It Home contest—part of the Design & Make It Real program—challenged students in the United States and Canada to reimagine affordable housing as a catalyst for community resilience. The urgency is real: in the United States, there are only 36 affordable and available rentals for every 100 low-income renter households, and an estimated 5.5 million new homes must be built over the next 20 years as global population trends toward 9.7 billion by 2050.
Against this backdrop, the students’ responses were visionary. Their designs addressed housing insecurity, climate adaptation, accessibility, and belonging—showing that young people not only understand the stakes but are ready to lead the solutions.
Building career pathways with Autodesk’s Design & Make Platform
At Autodesk, part of our mission is to create a better industry for today and tomorrow. When students have access to professional-grade tools and learn how to bring their ideas to life, they gain the confidence and mindset that they can design and make anything—whether as an architect, engineer, builder, city planner, or a career that doesn’t yet exist.
And we believe talent is everywhere, but opportunity isn’t. That’s why Autodesk offers our tools free to students and educators worldwide
It’s not just about learning software — it’s about ensuring that students, regardless of zip code or resources, can join tomorrow’s workforce with confidence.
About Autodesk’s Design & Make It Real Program
Through Design & Make It Real, Autodesk invites students to apply the design-thinking process to real-world challenges in construction and the built environment. The program helps them connect creativity with career readiness, fostering both technical fluency and social impact. Two cornerstone initiatives exemplify the mission of the 2025 program:
- Make It Home Scholarship Award: Students were challenged to design affordable-housing solutions that respond to both local and global needs. Winners earned nearly $50,000 in total scholarship awards and prizes to support educational expenses such as tuition, books, room and board, and transportation.
- Building Changemakers Microgrant Giveaway: This $500 microgrant supports U.S. students ages 17–22 who are transitioning from high school into apprenticeships or vocational training in the building trades. In 2025, Autodesk is offering $50,000 in microgrants to 100 emerging builders—helping cover costs like tuition, safety gear, certification fees, transportation, and childcare—with more funding opportunities coming in 2026.
Together, these initiatives reflect Autodesk’s commitment to empowering the next generation to design and make a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient world.
This year’s theme: Making home—and meaning
The 2025 Make It Home contest entries show how meaningfully students can use Design and Make skills to uplift humanity. We’re proud to celebrate these students whose entries tackled affordable housing as both a design challenge and a community catalyst—from border-region models rooted in vecindad courtyards to wildfire-resilient 3D-printed units, ADA-forward health-integrated housing, mass-timber neighborhood frameworks, drought-ready desert homes, Indigenous-informed designs, rammed-earth buildings, and more. Their work demonstrates that when young people have access to professional-grade tools, mentorship, and real-world constraints, they deliver ideas that are buildable, people-centered, and ready for impact.
To mark Construction Inclusion Week and Careers in Construction Month, we’re pairing eight of these student innovators with industry mentors who reviewed their work—leaders from Autodesk, the Boston Society for Architecture, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Autodesk Design & Make Student Ambassadors—each reflecting on what inspired them, what they took away from tapping into the ideas of student innovators, and how mentorship keeps them motivated to build the future alongside the next generation.
Purpose meets inspiration: Joshua Dobbs and Factory_OS
New England Patriots quarterback and aerospace engineer Joshua Dobbs, featured in Autodesk’s More Than a Destination film series, joined this year’s challenge to highlight how engineering and empathy intersect.
“Affordable housing isn’t just about numbers; it’s about people—and about building systems that help individuals invest in themselves and lift up their communities,” Dobbs shared in the film after visiting Factory_OS, a modular-housing innovator in California.
This message, and the students’ work, remind us that anything monumental begins with a vision—and the courage to make it real.
Read their stories
At the heart of Make It Home are the students—young designers and builders imagining what housing, equity, and community can look like. But they’re not learning alone. Industry mentors are listening, learning, and finding renewed inspiration in the next generation’s bold ideas. Their dialogue shows that mentorship isn’t just one-way.
And that’s why we’re excited to share these Student + Mentor Spotlights—paired stories that show what happens when emerging innovators and experienced professionals learn from one another.
Stay tuned—there’s more ahead
This article is just the first in our series.
Over this week and next, we’ll continue sharing these powerful conversations.
And we’re not stopping there.
At the end of the series, we’ll be unveiling an exciting new chapter of Autodesk’s Design & Make It Real program—complete with a sneak peek video featuring Josh Dobbs.
You’ll hear directly from him as we introduce the next design challenge and a bold new theme.
The post Building Belonging: 8 Student Designers Reimagining Affordable Housing appeared first on Digital Builder.