2021 Ascend Impact Challenge - Banner_v4_edited.jpg

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 challenge below.

THE CHALLENGE

Learning from the pandemic, how can small businesses increase their resilience to withstand, adapt, and thrive in the face of future shocks?

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.

Yelp Q1 YEA – Total New Business Openings April 2020 - March 2021.png

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER MIGHT INCLUDE

• Moving beyond curbside pickup and online orders, what aspects of doing business during the pandemic should a small business retain post-pandemic?
• What efforts could large companies undertake to help small businesses become more resilient?
• Develop an idea to create/improve support networks for small business owners.
• How might a business that failed during the pandemic re-start or re-make itself post pandemic?
• How can we alter the in-person experience to promote consumerism at small businesses?
• How can a small business effectively combine both in-person and digital experiences that can withstand future disruptions?
 
*** Graph shows closures since Mar 1, 2020 ***

*** Graph shows closures since Mar 1, 2020 ***

 

SPONSORS

WINNERS

Winners were selected on August 27, 2021 by a panel of judges. Projects were evaluated based on the judging criteria.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER!

GIGZ
$5,000

PLUS AN EA GAME FOR EACH MEMBER

SECOND PLACE WINNER:

HyperLoyal

Apple Watches for each team member
PLUS AN EA GAME FOR EACH MEMBER

THIRD PLACE WINNER:

PaID

$200 AMAZON GIFT CARDS FOR EACH TEAM MEMBER

CROWDSOURCE PRIZE WINNER:

WindowShop

$100 GRUBHUB GIFT CARDS FOR EACH TEAM MEMBER

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EVENT EMCEE (AUGUST 27)

HOPE KING
Business Reporter, Axios

EVENT SPEAKER

  • EVENT KEYNOTE (AUGUST 20)

    KRISTIE CURAMENG BRADFORD
    Director, Intellectual Property
    IBM

  • GUEST SPEAKER (AUGUST 27)

    BRIAN PANG
    Development Director
    EA Sports.

  • GUEST SPEAKER (AUGUST 27)

    CAROL LEE MITCHELL
    Head of Small Business Strategy
    Bank of America

JUDGES

  • KRISTIE CURAMENG BRADFORD

    Director, Intellectual Property
    IBM

  • JENNIFER JAO

    IT Executive, IT Experiences
    Toyota

  • BRIAN PANG

    Development Director
    EA Sports.

  • ROGER PARK

    Americas Innovation Officer
    EY

  • KAJAL GUPTA

    Senior Vice President, Small Business Segmentation & Strategy
    Bank of America

  • SANDRA BLACK

    Vice President, Solution Engineering
    Salesforce

GUIDELINES AND ELIGIBILITY

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.

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?

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.

  • 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.

EVENT SCHEDULE

  • AUG 20, 2021

    Event Kick Off

    Virtual : 1-3 PM ET

  • AUG 26, 2021

    Projects submission deadline

    Submit via Devpost by 5pm EST

  • AUG 27, 2021

    Team Presentations, Judging, Winners Announced
    Virtual : 2-4 PM ET

2020 HIGHLIGHTS

 

Ascend's 2020 Impact Challenge Winners are

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Team Sky Kitchen
Hahney Yo
Vivian Hu

 

Ascend's 2020 Impact Challenge finalists are

  • Team Cook with a Chef | Abi Suresh
  • Team DelierEats | Jasmine Laura, Tam Vo
  • Team MixPose | Peter Ma, Ethan Fan, Sarah Han