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The organizations behind this event are ahead in the field.
Presenting Partners
Partners
Put your organization’s real problem in front of fresh, motivated, interdisciplinary student teams — and stay close to the work as solutions take shape. Secure one of the limited spots today.
Innovative ideas are valuable — but organizations consistently tell us the greatest value is engaging directly with Colorado's next generation of talent. The Challenge is an innovation program and a statewide talent pipeline at once.
Partners commonly use the Challenge to recruit interns, identify future employees, build university relationships, raise brand visibility, and test new ideas against diverse student teams.
Become a Partner →
Partners stay close to the teams
Solutions come back to youThe Challenge works with industry, nonprofit, government, and community organizations. You can support the program without sponsoring a problem — or put a real challenge and a real bounty in front of student teams.
Invest in the Challenge ecosystem and help create the experience for students across Colorado.
Supporting Partners do not submit a bounty challenge.
Put a real organizational problem in front of interdisciplinary teams, and fund the bounty that rewards solving it.
The bounty is performance-based. You only pay it if a team meets the winning criteria you set. If no team clears your bar, no bounty is awarded.
A collaborative ecosystem driving real-world impact.
Organizations submit real-world challenges and collaborate with CIC to define success.
The challenge is shaped into a clear, actionable problem statement — pressure-tested with you before it reaches a single student.
Interdisciplinary student teams are recruited and matched to the challenge — at least two per challenge, so the solutions compete.
Teams engage in a structured, time-bound sprint with expert mentorship and resources.
Teams research, ideate, prototype, and refine practical solutions.
Teams present their solutions to a panel of judges and stakeholders.
Winning teams receive a monetary bounty in recognition of their impact.
Partners explore pilots and partnerships to bring solutions to life and create lasting impact.
The program is designed to keep partners close to the teams developing solutions to their challenge — without consuming your calendar.
Every team is judged on the same six Challenge criteria. On top of those, you define what a winning solution looks like for your organization — published with your problem statement, before the sprint starts.
Your challenge gets its own card on the platform. Teams post questions there, you get an email, and you answer when it suits you — no standing meetings to schedule.
We match a minimum of two teams to every challenge. That turns your decision from a yes-or-no judgment call into a genuine choice between competing approaches.
You judge your own challenge at the Celebration Dinner, against the Challenge rubric and the criteria you added. If no team meets your bar, no bounty is awarded — the standard stays yours throughout.
The Challenge uses a tiered IP framework that scales with the bounty level — so both you and the students know where you stand before anyone writes a line of code. This is agreed during alignment, never negotiated on the night.
Tell us about your challenge and we’ll walk you through partnership, bounty options, and the program timeline.