FY 2026 Tech Youth Program

FY 2026 Tech Youth Program

The FY 2026 Tech Youth Program is a U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) cooperative-agreement opportunity. The official federal listing shows that the application period is closed. Its deadline was July 6, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, and the listing does not announce a new application window. This page is therefore a historical reference to the published competition, not an open call for proposals.

The opportunity was announced under funding opportunity number DFOP0018281. ECA expected to make one award of approximately $1,100,000, subject to the availability of funds. The proposed award would support a 15-month program built around a three-week exchange in the United States, with pre-exchange preparation, post-exchange engagement, and community capstone work. The solicitation anticipated that the U.S. exchange would take place in summer 2027, but that planned activity date was not an application deadline and does not reopen the competition.

Status and important dates

The federal listing records the opportunity as closed. The date in this page’s deadline field is the actual closing date of the FY 2026 competition, preserved so the archive entry remains transparent about the round it describes. The historicalReference = true flag identifies it as a closed opportunity. No next Tech Youth application cycle is announced on the official listing or in the published Notice of Funding Opportunity.

The underlying solicitation identified the following schedule and parameters:

The solicitation said that, if implementation was satisfactory and funds were available, ECA intended to renew the award for two additional consecutive fiscal years before competing the program again. That statement was an agency intention, not a promise of a future public application round. Readers should wait for a new official listing before treating a later cycle as available.

What the program was designed to fund

Tech Youth was not a scholarship, student stipend application, or individual internship. It was an organization-level award to design and operate an international youth exchange. The selected recipient would coordinate with ECA, participating U.S. embassies, host communities, companies, educators, mentors, and families. Applicants needed to explain how their organization would turn a federal award into a supervised exchange for high-school students, rather than simply propose a conference or short technology camp.

The program concept centered on technical learning, leadership, entrepreneurship, and international relationships. ECA described activities such as job shadowing, visits to U.S. companies, meetings with industry leaders, intensive coursework, and hands-on training. Artificial intelligence literacy was a priority, but the solicitation also allowed a broad set of emerging-technology topics, including advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, cybersecurity, e-commerce, energy, quantum computing, robotics, and space technologies.

The planned cohort was approximately 96 American and international participants: about 72 English-speaking international high-school students and 24 U.S. high-school students. ECA expected participants to come from select countries worldwide, with country selection handled by ECA in consultation with regional bureaus. The recipient was not free to promise a fixed set of countries in its application. The Department could adjust participating countries, regions, participant numbers, budgets, or program configuration based on program needs, funding, and foreign-policy priorities.

The target participant profile was specific. The solicitation described young people ages 15 to 18 who lived in participating countries or territories, had an interest in technology and global issues, showed leadership potential through school or community activities, and wanted to strengthen technology, entrepreneurial, and problem-solving skills. Participants were expected to be proficient in English, interested in further study or careers in technology, willing to complete a capstone project, and prepared to remain engaged with the ECA alumni community after the exchange. These were program-participant characteristics; they should not be confused with the eligibility rules for the organization applying for the award.

Eligibility for the organization-level competition

The published eligibility section named U.S. not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society or nongovernmental organizations, as well as U.S. not-for-profit public and private educational institutions. Individual students, for-profit businesses, and foreign organizations were not presented as direct applicant categories in the solicitation. A school, nonprofit, or other eligible institution would have needed to apply as the accountable recipient and explain its partner arrangements.

The expected award amount made the international-exchange experience requirement especially important. ECA’s grant guidelines required an organization seeking more than $130,000 in ECA funding to demonstrate at least four years of experience conducting international exchanges. Because this competition anticipated an award of about $1.1 million, the proposal needed evidence of at least four years of relevant international-exchange experience.

Every applicant organization also needed a UEI issued through SAM.gov and an active SAM.gov registration, maintained while the proposal was under review and throughout any resulting period of performance. The NOFO noted that SAM.gov registration or renewal could take four to eight weeks. A case-specific exemption could be possible under the stated federal rules, but it required advance justification and approval; it was not a general way to bypass registration after the deadline.

The competition permitted no required percentage of cost sharing. ECA encouraged applicants to provide cost sharing or other support, but voluntary contributions did not replace the need for a complete federal budget. Only one proposal was considered per applicant organization. For this rule, ECA defined the applicant by its legal name and EIN. If more than one submission appeared in Grants.gov, ECA would consider the submission made closest to the deadline.

Program components described in the solicitation

An applicant’s design needed to cover the full program lifecycle. Before the U.S. exchange, participants would take part in substantive virtual activities introducing the themes, online safety, foundational AI concepts, and tools relevant to emerging industries. These sessions were meant to prepare participants for active engagement and help a geographically distributed cohort build cohesion.

The central exchange would last three weeks and be age-appropriate, interactive, and intensive without filling every hour of every day. The required design included a technology camp and a short visit to Washington, D.C. Other activities could include workshops, cultural and social programming, job shadowing, meetings with U.S. companies, structured mentorship, and practical projects. The recipient needed to divide the delegation into smaller cohorts when appropriate so participants could take part fully and staff could monitor their safety and well-being.

The Washington, D.C. component was intended to include a visit to the U.S. Department of State, where participants would debrief Department representatives about their exchange experience and projects. ECA would remain substantially involved in the cooperative agreement. The Department could advise on program execution, approve finalist lists and materials, conduct site visits when feasible, coordinate the J-1 exchange-visitor sponsorship process, and liaise with embassies and regional bureaus.

The post-exchange phase was not optional padding. Participants were expected to design and implement capstone projects in their home communities within six months of completing the program. International participants were also expected to share their experiences with their communities within a year through presentations, social media, media interviews, or other channels. The recipient would support mentorship, alumni engagement, and follow-on activities, including connections to the wider ECA alumni network.

What an application had to include

The application route was electronic submission through Grants.gov. The complete solicitation package was available through Grants.gov and the ECA organizational funding opportunities page. The official submission instructions directed applicants to prepare their Grants.gov registration early, because registration could take up to four weeks, while SAM.gov registration could take longer.

The required package included an SF-424, executive summary, proposal narrative, SF-424A budget, detailed line-item budget, and explanatory budget narrative. The narrative needed to address the program objectives and provide a detailed work plan for the technology camp, workshops, exchange activities, site visits, participant selection, safety and well-being monitoring, mentorship, capstones, and follow-on engagement. The budget request could not exceed the stated award amount. Optional supporting material could include sample calendars or itineraries, resumes or CVs, and letters of endorsement or commitment.

The organization also needed to describe its internal capacity and record. Reviewers were asked to consider program quality, the ability to carry out the proposed plan, institutional resources and controls for federal funds, performance monitoring and evaluation, and cost-effectiveness. A credible submission would connect each activity to measurable outcomes rather than stop at a list of appealing events. The NOFO called for a developed monitoring and evaluation plan with goals, objectives, indicators, data collection, analysis, reporting, and a learning process for using results to improve implementation.

Because the participants were high-school students, the work plan needed practical supervision and safeguarding arrangements. The solicitation asked applicants to address participant safety and well-being throughout the program, including staffing, smaller cohorts, travel coordination, homestays or lodging, emergency communication, and consultation with embassies. It also required the recipient to plan participant travel, chaperone travel, orientations, meals, cultural activities, follow-on work, and support for participants who might need assistance because of disability or financial hardship.

How to use this historical entry

There is no current application action to take for the FY 2026 round. Do not submit materials against the closed deadline or assume that the planned summer 2027 exchange creates a new applicant window. An organization researching a future Tech Youth round can still use this entry to understand the previous structure: one large cooperative agreement, a 15-month performance period, about $1.1 million in anticipated funding, an approximately 96-person cohort, strong ECA involvement, and a requirement for pre-exchange, in-person, capstone, and alumni components.

Before relying on any future version, verify a new official federal listing, read its complete NOFO and Proposal Submission Instructions, and confirm the applicant categories, experience threshold, funding amount, deadline, participant plan, and registration rules. The authoritative reference for this archived round is the official Simpler.Grants.gov opportunity listing, which links to the ECA NOFO and records the closed status. Questions about a future announcement should be directed through the contact information in that future solicitation rather than inferred from this historical page.