This season, Honeywell is proud to support a meaningful connection between sports, education and emerging technology through the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” initiative. Carolina Panthers offensive tackle Ikem “Ickey” Ekwonu selected the Carolina Youth Coalition (CYC) as his cause – honoring an organization dedicated to helping high-achieving, under-resourced students succeed in college and beyond. In choosing CYC, Ickey also spotlighted another passion of his: expanding access and opportunity to innovative technology for young people and helping them understand how that can drive creativity.
To help bring Ickey’s cleats to life, Honeywell collaborated with CYC and the Panthers to lead a hands-on AI design session for CYC Fellows. Honeywell Senior Director of IT Governance and AI Operations Ron Jones guided students through a structured, professional-grade creative process designed to show how emerging technologies shape real-world design. Jones began by explaining how AI can support and elevate creative thinking, then demonstrated how to upload Ickey’s official cleat template and write effective prompts with precision. He shared example prompts, walked students step-by-step through generating and refining cleat concepts and encouraged iteration and final polishing.
Students were challenged to design cleats that represented CYC’s identity, incorporating the organization’s core values (Community, Excellence, Empowerment, Openness and Growth), its official colors and its guiding slogan, “Every Dream Needs a Team.” These thoughtful student-generated concepts ultimately served as inspiration for the custom cleats Ickey will wear on gameday, offering Fellows a tangible example of how their creativity, values and AI skills can translate into real-world outcomes.
Following the design challenge, Fellows continued applying Honeywell’s innovation mindset through a user-experience storyboarding exercise. Using design-thinking principles, students mapped how users would discover, navigate and engage with their broader app ideas – reinforcing the connection between creativity, responsible AI use and problem-solving. This two-part experience demonstrated how design and technology intersect, building skills that extend far beyond a single project.
“Honeywell builds bridges between classroom learning and the skills needed for the future workforce,” said Sheila Jordan, senior vice president and chief digital technology officer at Honeywell. She added, “Any time we can help students apply emerging technology to real-world challenges, we’re helping open doors for their future.”
This collaboration continues Ickey’s ongoing work with Honeywell – including his role in the Futureshaper Innovation Challenge – and reinforces a shared commitment to empowering local students through AI learning, hands-on creativity and community partnership.
