Intuit's Social Innovation Challenge engages students from school districts and educational organizations across North America to leverage design thinking as they develop innovative solutions to solve a problem prompt. Students compete in teams to win prizes from swag to scholarships.
About Intuit's Social Innovation Challenges
Engaging students to learn durable skills while making a positive impact in their communities
Learn real-world skills
Learn skills used by the most innovative founders & companies, including Intuit’s design thinking method, Design for Delight, and add new skills to your resume and/or college application.
Create a solution
Create solutions that interest you, leveraging your knowledge of design thinking. Then, identify potential customers, brainstorm, and test your ideas.
Compete with your team
Compete against other high school students across North America and test your new skills.
Intuit's 2023 Spring Social Innovation Challenge
This spring, students will be asked to develop a solution to the following prompt:
How might we help your school be more sustainable?
How might we help your school be more sustainable?
How to join the Challenge
Compete in the 2023 Social Innovation Challenge
Step 1: Form your team
Put together a team of 2-8 people to help you build your solution during the challenge.
Register all team members
Step 2: Sign up
Competing in the challenge is completely free. Register before March 6, 2023 to participate.
Sign up
Step 3: Learn Design for Delight
Take the self-paced Design for Delight Foundations course—this will help you and your team to create innovative solutions during the challenge.
Take the course
Step 4: Build & submit
Use the Social Innovation Challenge Guidebook and resources to document your team's progress and prepare for final submissions.
Join the challenge
Resources
Not sure where to start? Check out these shareable 1-page resources to help you learn more about the Social Innovation Challenge.
About the Social Innovation Challenge
Check out this brief overview of the Social Innovation Challenge.
What to expect: for educators
Learn how educators can support their students while they compete in the Challenge.
What to expect: for students
Get a glimpse at the outline and expectations for students during the Challenge.
Timeline
Mar
6
The Challenge Begins
Project work begins today in addition to completing workbook materials and the Design for Delight Foundations course.
Mar
27
Submissions Due
All teams will submit their presentations and projects.
Mar
31
Regional Winners Announced
Regional winners (40 teams) will move forward to compete in the final round of the challenge.
Mar
31
Finalist Round Begins
Finalist teams will have 2 weeks to continue working on their prototypes and solutions.
Apr
17
Finalist Submissions Due
All finalist teams will submit their presentations and projects.
Apr
21
Final Winners Announced
Final winners will be announced and awarded a variety or prizes!
Prizes and awards
1st Place Finalists
$5,000 educational scholarships per student
2nd Place Finalists
$3,000 educational scholarships per student
3rd Place Finalists
$2,000 educational scholarships per student
Regional Winners
$250-value prize per team
All Participants
Design for Delight Certification Exam ($100 value)
Recent challenge winners
To say that taking part in Intuit’s Social Innovation Challenge has inspired me would be an understatement. Throughout my time participating in this challenge, I have become less ignorant and grown more aware of the struggles that underrepresented groups endure not only in the business world but in their daily lives. I would recommend this challenge to any aspiring students who are eager to advocate for social change.
These skills of leadership, adaptability, and learning together as a collaborative team will also help me in the real world, where I’ll need to be resourceful and to take leadership into action.
The social innovation challenge has taught and inspired me in so many ways. It has allowed me to look at the success stories of people that have faced adversity, and it has inspired me to strive for success and overcome my own obstacles.
This project helped me to find my liking, something I am passionate about, and how I envision using the lessons as I explore more ideas and work towards goals to be great... leaving an image on my business.
By having guidance from my mentors, working with my teammates, and pitching the website to interested users, I gained insight into working in a real-world setting.
I have seen how detrimental not having access to mentors or people that understand certain aspects, like governmental procedures and permits, can be to a minority entrepreneur,” Mata said. “With our product we hoped to have been able to close this knowledge gap while creating an opportunity to network.
We developed problem solving skills as well as learned how to work in a team. We will utilize these skills by applying them to our future careers.
I believe getting students outside of the classroom, outside of their day-to-day routine, will help them gain the critical thinking and collaboration skills they need to enter the workforce and contribute to their communities. We created our first Design for Delight challenge in 2019 and found students engaged, excited and energized to work on a project of their choosing, while simultaneously learning durable career skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, leadership and more. Today, we invest in designing and building design thinking challenges, utilizing Design for Delight, around the world to help students prepare for the future, in addition to training educators to use design thinking in their classrooms.
