Make It Better Challenge
What if we taught students to make things better…not just to build things?
The Make It Better Challenge is a virtual, asynchronous innovation experience with tools, mini-lessons, and mentoring.
The challenge has three progressive parts: Make It, Make It Work, and Make It Happen. While there is a progression, the stages are not separate steps that you complete and leave behind. The entire process is iterative. As you learn more, you will revisit earlier decisions, refine your prototype, and make Version .2, .3, 1.0—and beyond. As your idea evolves, what it takes to make it work and happen will evolve with it.
The Challenge
How could you make it better for a BLV (blind or low-vision) student navigating education in a sighted world?
The challenge is open to middle school students and beyond, but the experience you explore can span the entire educational journey—from the youngest learner to a post-doc. Your idea should springboard from personal experience: an educational experience you have personally been through as a student, teacher, teaching assistant, administrator, parent, or other member of the education ecosystem. You don’t need to be a BLV student to participate.
The challenge is made possible by donors and members of our innovation ecosystem, and is open to pods of 2–5 intergenerational participants.
Make It Grow Incubator
Once there is evidence that you’ve made something better and made it happen, you can choose to continue into Make It Grow. Here, the focus shifts to scale, sustainability, and impact. With deeper support from mentors and angel investors, participants explore what it would take to turn a working solution into something that can benefit many more people.
That might mean exploring a scalable business model, a sustainable nonprofit model, partnerships, distribution, funding, or other paths to growth. Participants will also have the opportunity to explore what questions funders, partners, customers, and investors might ask before supporting the next stage.
Make It Better. Make It Work. Make It Happen. Then, if the opportunity is there, Make It Grow.