August 20-27, 2021

THE CHALLENGE

As we look ahead to post-COVID recovery, we cannot lose sight of the impact the last 15 months have had on small businesses. The abrupt pivot in early 2020 to an almost exclusively digital economy exposed crucial vulnerabilities for many small businesses. Small scale restaurants, salons, gift shops — retailers of every type– had to reinvent themselves again and again. As a result, small businesses of every variety have adopted new business models, platforms, products and services.

Ascend invites innovative, socially conscious students and professionals from any school or industry to compete in this year’s Impact Challenge. Help us put resilience into concrete action by formulating a solution to the following challenge:

TEAMS

• Teams can consist of up to five members. Each team member must register for the event.
• All ages are welcome, including students and working professionals. Participants under the age of 18 will be required to complete a permission form.
• Teams can be based anywhere in the world, however, please note the scheduled live event times below which are all in U.S. Eastern Time (GMT-04:00)
• Entries submitted by employees of sponsoring companies or organizations will not be judged by a judge from the same company or organization.

MENTORS

• Teams will be assigned a mentor from the Ascend network or a sponsoring company
• The mentor’s role is to offer feedback and advice; mentors are not project leads. Team submissions should be driven by the team members from conception to completion.

SUBMISSIONS

Submissions must reflect the original work of the project team alone. Submissions must consist of the following components:

• Written application via DevPost
• Video pitch (No more than 60 seconds)
• Prototype (optional)

Please adhere to the deadline for submissions above. This deadline is to give the judges time to review submissions before the competition. Submissions should be submitted via DevPost

The top 10 teams will present their submission on August 27 for the judging panel.

A video presentation is acceptable, however, at least one team member must attend the live virtual event to be available to answer questions. Teams will have a total of 5 minutes to present their idea to the judges and 2 minutes for Q&A. Your team’s 60 second video pitch may be included as part of your presentation but is not required.

JUDGING CRITERIA

Projects will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Impact: How impactful could this solution be?
• Scalability: What is the potential for scalability? How costly would this solution be to bring to scale?
• Creativity: How original is this solution? Does it set itself apart from existing solutions? Does it demonstrate outside-the-box thinking?
• Design: Is this solution thoughtful and complete? Is the strategy appropriate?

JUDGES

SPONSORS

WINNERS

REGISTRATION

Registration is CLOSED

This virtual challenge will take place from August 20-27, 2021. 

Tickets to participate in this event are FREE. Registration will close on August 20, 2021 at 12:00 am EST

TOOLS, DATA, and IP RIGHTS

Participants are permitted to use any commercially known open source tools. Participants are also encouraged to use their own proprietary solutions to develop creative and efficient products. If you are representing a company, your company’s proprietary software assets are also allowed to be used with the appropriate permission from your organization. Please reference the Terms and Conditions to confirm that all IP rights remain with the participant and/or the organization they are representing.

All participants must agree to the Terms and Conditions listed.