The IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge is MIT’s 20+ year-old social impact incubator housed in the PKG Public Service Center. Since its founding in 2001, IDEAS has enabled MIT student-led teams to apply their education and expertise in collaboration with community partners to address social and environmental challenges around the world. Through IDEAS, MIT students recruit a team from anywhere in the world and develop a creative solution in partnership with impacted stakeholders. IDEAS teams benefit from a robust curriculum, supportive body of reviewers, mentors, and funding ranging from $1,000 – $20,000.
IDEAS is first and foremost an experiential learning program, boasting learning outcomes within Teaming and Collaboration, Systems Thinking, and Impact Measurement. Teams must be led by current MIT students, but can have alumni and people unconnected to MIT as team members or collaborate as community partners. Teams are evaluated on a rubric based on the following criteria:
Innovation in context
Feasibility of implementation
Impact potential
2025-2026 Timeline
Applications open Wednesday, September 10, 2025 and close on Monday, November 24, 2025. Take a look below at this year’s cycle of deadlines, workshops, and opportunities to grow as a social innovator.
| September | – Application portal opens on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 – Funding: Apply to Sandbox for initial seed funding to start testing your hypothesis – Events: Explore MIT’s entrepreneurship festival t=0, a month-long celebration at the start of the school year – Workshops: Social Innovations for Systems-Change, How to develop community partnerships – Drop-in advising is available and encouraged |
| October | – Events: Find a team to join or recruit teammates at Pitch2Match Social Impact co-hosted with the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship at MIT – Info Session: Learn more about IDEAS and the Arts Startup Incubator – Workshops: Mapping systems & Unmet Needs, AI for Social Impact Ventures – Drop-in advising is available and encouraged. |
| November | – Application portal closes on Monday, November 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM Noon EST – Workshops: How to submit a strong application, – Drop-in advising is available and encouraged. |
| December | – A group of reviewers provide feedback and evaluate your proposal based on the IDEAS Rubric |
| January | – Feedback and interview times are distributed – IDEAS staff conduct interviews and extend offers to selected teams |
| February – April | – IDEAS programming kicks off! Programming includes but is not limited to: alumni dinner, weekly workshops, workshop deliverables, mentorship, team progress check-ins – April 11th: Judge interviews to determine grant funding – April 15th: IDEAS Showcase & Awards |
| May – August | – Virtual summer monthly meetings with previous cohort |
| September + | – Teams who receive grant funding continue to receive programming support until next summer |
Prepare your Application
Register for any of our social innovation workshop series or events this fall to learn more about social innovation and prepare to submit a strong proposal by November 24.
- Social Innovations for Systems-Change (9/18 5:30-6:30 PM)
- How to develop community partnerships (9/25 3-4 PM)
- Pitch2Match Social Impact co-hosted with the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship at MIT: Find a team to join or recruit teammates (10/7 5-7PM)
- AI for Social Impact Ventures (10/9 5-6 PM)
- Mapping Systems & Unmet Needs (10/22 5-6 PM)
- Creative Cafe with PKG IDEAS & the Arts Startup Incubator (10/16 5-6:15 PM)
- How to submit a strong application (11/12 6:30-7:30PM)
Advising
Schedule a time to meet the PKG Center Social Innovation team:
Social Innovation Assistant Dean, Lauren Tyger: book a time with me!
Social Entrepreneur in Residence, Jenna Winocur: book a time with me!
Looking for inspiration? Meet the 2025 Cohort of Social Innovators.
Eight teams received grant prizes to implement their projects. These teams were selected by a group of experts across a variety of industries who volunteered as IDEAS judges.
The 2025 grantees include:
- $20,000 award: SamWise is an AI-powered oral assessment tool that provides personalized education for incarcerated students, overcoming outdated testing methods. By leveraging large language models, it enhances learning engagement and accessibility.
- $15,000 award: China Dispossession Watch is developing a digital platform to document and raise awareness of grassroots anti-displacement activism and provide empirical analysis of forced expropriation and demolition in China.
- $10,000 award: Liberatory Computing is an educational framework that empowers African-American youth to use data science and AI to address systemic inequities.
- $7,500 Award: POLLEN is a purpose-driven card game and engagement framework designed to spark transnational conversations around climate change and disaster preparedness.
- $5,000 Award: Helix Carbon is transforming carbon conversion by producing electrolyzers with enhanced system lifetimes, enabling the onsite conversion of carbon dioxide into useful chemicals at industrial facilities.
- $2,000 Award: Forma Systems has developed a breakthrough in concrete floor design, using up to 72 percent less cement and 67 percent less steel, with the potential for significant environmental impact.
- $2,000 Award: Precisia empowers women with real-time, data-driven insights into their hormonal health through micro-needle patch technology, allowing them to make informed decisions about their well-being.
- $2,000 Award: BioBoost is experimenting with converting Caribbean sargassum seaweed waste into carbon-neutral energy using pyrolysis, addressing both the region’s energy challenges and the environmental threat of seaweed accumulation.
IDEAS has been a resource for students seeking social impact at MIT since 2001. Discover some of the past IDEAS teams over the years.
FAQs
Is my team a good fit?
Explore examples of past teams, and stop into our advising to share more about your project!
I have an idea but don’t have a team. Do I need a team, and how can I build one?
We strongly recommend having a team of at least 2 to 3 members. A great way to join a team or recruit team members is by attending Pitch2Match Social Impact, and stopping by any of the fall workshops and events highlighted above.
I have an idea but I don’t know if it will be a startup, is that ok?
Our curriculum prepares students to learn more about creating sustainable change through social enterprises, but we also share examples of teams who become sustainable through a nonprofit business model, or other creative structures. It’s ok to not know this yet.
Why is the community partner a requirement for the program, and what counts as a community partner?
Our values at the PKG are central to IDEAS programming. Respect and Reciprocity are paramount to sustainable systems change. While disruptive technology can change the world for the better, we also recognize the unintended harm that can happen when we do not spend enough time understanding the social and environmental implications of introducing a new technology or interventions within communities or economies. We strongly encourage teams to partner with a community partners to understand the problem, develop the solution, and implement the project. By developing mutually beneficial relationships with community partners, we believe we can begin to minimize potential for harm, alongside other harm reduction practices. A community partner can be a non-profit organization, a government body, a partner or client company, a community leader, a school, etc.
At what stage of a project is IDEAS most appropriate?
IDEAS is best suited for early stage ideas (pun intended!). Although you may enter a project for which you already have established a formal entity (501(c)(3), LLC, C corp, B corp, for example), your project cannot have acquired significant investment ($>100,000).
Other questions? Email: mitpkgideas@mit.edu
Volunteer with IDEAS
Are you a social impact expert or an IDEAS alum eager to contribute? Here are some ways you can get involved with IDEAS:
- Reviewer: Reviews initial IDEAS applications in December and provides feedback.
- Mentor: Serves as a mentor for IDEAS finalists and grantees. There are levels to mentorship depending on time availability.
- Expert / Speaker: Serves as a one-time social enterprise subject matter expert.
- Judge: Serves as a judge on a 1-day Saturday judging session in April, evaluating teams to determine grant awardees.
Indicate your interest in serving as a volunteer for our next program cycle here and we will be in touch with you.
Additional Program Offerings
Resource Connector: We continue to share opportunities and resources for MIT and non-MIT student social innovators and entrepreneurs via our Resource Connector linked here.
MIT Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation (SE+I) Ecosystem Institute-wide Slack Workspace: Connect with students, faculty and different program administrators to learn about the various other programs across MIT here. Be sure to search the Slack workspace name ‘mit-se-innovation’ to locate and join. This is an MIT community-only resource. Once you have joined, you may invite any member of the MIT community.