In conjunction with this semester’s Honors Colloquium, Democracy in Peril, this year’s RISE-UP Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge is centered around Democratizing Innovation.
Now in its second year, the challenge, which is part of the RISE-UP initiative and the University of Rhode Island Honors Program, welcomes students from all majors to create ideas for addressing problems through democratic innovation and entrepreneurship, according to the challenge overview .
“I was really surprised by the things that [last year’s participants] came up with,” Taylor said.
Multiple changes have been made to the I&E Challenge from its first year, according to assistant teaching professor Cynthia Taylor. Students interested in participating in the challenge must now attend at least two colloquium presentations , which are typically held on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Edwards Auditorium.
The challenge takes place over the course of the entire 2024-2025 school year, unlike last year’s challenge, which took place over one semester, according to Taylor.
“We’re hoping that by extending this to one year, the entire year, that this gives students a little bit more time to think about their ideas and to develop their ideas,” Taylor said.
During the fall portion of the contest, students work to create a mission statement for their innovation that tackles social, political, environmental and economic problems democratically, according to the challenge overview.
In the spring, finalists will attend workshops to develop a prototype and pitch to submit to judges, according to Taylor. The content of the workshops will be determined by the number of participants and their interests.
Another change that has been made to the challenge is, instead of multiple college-specific challenges, which last year were around the theme of sustainability, there is just one primary challenge that students from all colleges can participate in under the theme of democracy.
“They should participate to learn more about democracy and democratic processes outside of just voting and elections,” Taylor said. “I also think it’s a really fun way to get involved on campus, meet new people and learn about principles of innovation and entrepreneurship and apply them in unexpected ways.”
Second-year Sharday Johnson participated in last year’s challenge. This year, she is serving as a marketing and project management outreach intern for the program.
“Even though this might be something students do on the side and not have a lot of time to do, I think it would be extremely advantageous for them to do this,” Johnson said.
Participants in the challenge can connect with the deans of the different colleges at URI and make professional connections through the challenge, according to Johnson.
“It’s nice to get more connected with the URI community because that’s what our challenges do in the long run,” Johnson said. “We connect people together and we actually get them to form teams together and potentially become friends.”
In addition to the connections that students can form, there is a prize of $2,000 in implementation funds for first-round finalists and another prize of $5,000 in implementation funds for those finalists to compete for, according to the challenge overview.
Students interested in participating must register through a Google form by Nov. 15.
