Big Ideas: 2015-2016 Contest Launches
By Jacie Jones
Carbon Neutrality Initiative.
When the Big Ideas student innovation
contest launched 10 years ago, it was a
novel concept: give teams of students with
potential breakthrough ideas small sums
of money and a variety of supports and
see what happens. Over the past decade,
a lot has happened.
Big Ideas is one of the biggest intercampus efforts in the University of
California and the nation. It brings together
such entities as the Development Impact
Lab at UC Berkeley, the United States
Agency for International Development,
USAID’s Higher Education Solutions
Network, the Center for Information
Technology Research in the Interest of
Society (CITRIS), All Children Reading: A
Grand Challenge for Development, the
UC Berkeley Food Institute, the UC Global
Food Initiative, the UC Carbon Neutrality
Initiative, Michigan State University’s
Global Center for Food Systems
Innovation, the Associated Students of the
University of California, and the Berkeley
Energy and Resources Collaborative —as
well as over 200 judges and 50 mentors.
Big Ideas has gone on to seed scores of
high impact projects—from the Cellscope,
which turns the camera of a mobile phone
or tablet computer into a high-quality light
microscope, to the Cal Climate Action
Partnership, a coalition of UC Berkeley
students, staff, and faculty now pushing
to achieve carbon neutrality on campus
by 2025. The contest has jump-started
successful companies like Captricity,
which sells data capture software to
digitize hand-written forms, and Back
to the Roots, which creates sustainable
food products from coffee grounds and
other food waste. It has also given the
first precious funds to nonprofits like We
Care Solar, which provides solar-powered
suitcases for use in maternity hospitals
and clinics, and Acopio, a supply chain
information platform for Latin American
coffee farmers.
For many student innovators, Big Ideas
served as the first step in turning a
grand hunch into a viable proposal. Since
2006, the contest has provided support
to student teams who have gone on to
secure over $55 million in additional
funding for their for profit, nonprofit, or
hybrid ventures.
This year’s contest launches September
8. It will provide up to $300,000 in awards,
and will build on a well-honed tradition
of coaching teams through eight months
of pre-proposals, mentorship, and final
submissions. The tenth anniversary
contest will also provide more competition
categories to more students. Contestants
will be able to submit their ideas to the
newly introduced “Financial Inclusion”
category and the newly extended “Energy
& Resource Alternatives” category,
sponsored by the University of California
PAGE 14
As the contest enters its tenth year, its
reach encompasses 18 universities,
including the entire University of California
system and the USAID Higher Education
Solutions Network, as well as 650,000
students—making the Big Ideas Contest
one of the largest student innovation
competitions [