Social Innovation Challenge Past Winners

Meet the Fall 2025 Winners

Challenge: Achieving Justice Through Innovation

The Fall 2025 Social Innovation Challenge invites students to design bold, creative solutions that advance justice, equity, and fairness. Participants were challenged to deeply understand the root causes of injustice, center community voices, and propose solutions that are inclusive, scalable, and sustainable.

Sydney Sanchez won first place in the challenge for her proposal of Soul Sister. From her proposal: Soul Sister is an innovation that would help bridge chronically ill college women over the inequalities that they face as a community as it would function differently than the other support systems already active. These systems focus mainly on either financial help or in person assistance, which can be difficult for those with chronic illnesses as flare ups can prohibit them from traveling and meeting with organizations in person. It is necessary to have financial help and nonprofits who specialize in these social issues. Often there is an overlook of the community's support for one another and the need for autonomy. For many women, chronic illness has left them chronically fatigued and with so little precious energy they need sources and a system that can come to them and be easy to navigate.

Marissa Harper was the first runner-up with her proposal of Project Open Minds. From her proposal: Project Open Minds is a small, outdoor campus event open to all students where they can freely try out mobility aids brought in by disabled students and the community. It would feature volunteer disabled students who are there to talk about their stories about living with a disability and share their knowledge. These conversations and physical handling of the mobility aids would create a casual understanding of what it is like to use a mobility aid and to allow people to understand the experience of a disabled person. The goal of Project Open Minds is to address the unmet need of understanding, respect, and integration that disabled students need in their lives. Disabled college students desire for their peers to understand, respect, and integrate them into their lives. They do not wish to be treated with aversion or excessive sympathy.

Isaac Hernandez, Renee Plascencia, Aggie Casadont, and Lauren Moran were the second runner-up in this challenge with their proposal of Paw Packs. From the group's presentation: Many students experience hunger and insufficient nutrition throughout the day. Hunger is negatively impacting students' energy, focus, and academic performance. Our solutions include: Providing students with quick, accessible, and free meal options. Support and improve academic performance across all levels. Decreased student absence through better nutrition accessibility. Improved student engagement and concentration in class.

Meet the Spring 2025 Winners

Challenge: Addressing Basic Needs Through Community-Driven Solutions

The Spring 2025 Social Innovation Challenge invites students or student groups to propose innovative solutions around basic needs. A student perspective is imperative in the pursuit of ideas that are sustainable, innovative, grounded, and relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Kaiah Rivas won first place in the challenge for her proposal of HerHealth Affirmed. From her proposal: The name of my project is HerHealth Affirmed, an in person event held on campus for women to learn strategies that can help prevent and stop medical gaslighting from happening. The event is composed of two things: a community circle and making question cards for attendees to keep. The community circle portion will let women have the opportunity to discuss if they have ever
experienced medical gaslighting. They can share what they did in response and listen to guest speakers. The second portion of the event would be crafting question cards that attendees can refer to the next time they visit a doctor. On one side there will be question outlines such as asking for follow up tests to be done. On the other side there will be a statement that can be read in the instance that the doctor does not want to treat them.

Joshua Hoover was the first runner-up with his proposal of NeuroStart: An Advocacy and Support Center for Autistic Students. From his proposal: Introducing NeuroStart: An Advocacy and Support Center for Autistic Students—a comprehensive campus initiative designed to enhance the quality of life for autistic students and support their transition to university. NeuroStart integrates key elements of traditional support groups, one-on-one therapy, and inclusive training, among other resources. By collaborating with existing campus services at CSUSM, such as Disability Support Services (DSS) and Student Health & Counseling Services (SHCS), NeuroStart aims to expand and strengthen the support network available to autistic students. 

Anali Flores was the second runner-up in this challenge with her proposal of "Cougar Thrift". From Anali's proposal: The proposed solution to address the unmet basic need of clothing for college students at California State University San Marcos is a university thrift store— the “Cougar Thrift.” Inspired by similar social innovations utilized by a couple of universities, such as the University of Chicago (“reSTORE”), the Lewis & Clark College (“ReUse”), etc. The university thrift store would be run as a regular store, but provide free clothing for current CSUSM students.

Meet the Fall 2024 Winners

Challenge: Addressing Basic Needs Through Community-Driven Solutions

The Fall 2024 Social Innovation Challenge invites students or student groups to propose innovative solutions around basic needs. A student perspective is imperative in the pursuit of ideas that are sustainable, innovative, grounded, and relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Sol Garcia won first place in the challenge for their proposal of The Cougar Transit Center: Emphasizing transit commuters while uplifting all commuters. From his proposal: The Cougar Transit Center, located in the USU building is a remodeling and reinvention of the very sad and unwelcoming commuter lounge that is currently in the USU. This center would be the hub for all things to do with commuting but with a focus on public transit commuters. The Cougar Transit Center would serve as a combination lounge for commuters and a center where transit commuter students could access resources and amenities with the help of student workers.

Tyler Smith, Mason Kingsbury, and Luis Fabian were the first runner-ups with their proposal of A scheduled ride service, C.A.T. (Cougar Accessible Transportation). From their proposal: The program would work within the CSUSM DSS (Disabled Student Services) infrastructure that exists and create website, phone based and app based options to schedule a ride from designated locations on campus and the transit stations. Eventually, in later implementation phases, this program would create on demand services and provide an ADA accessible shuttle service.

Jaidyn Gutierrez was the second runner up in this challenge with her proposal of The “Let’s Talk” Program: Bringing Mental Health Support Directly to Students. From Jaidyn's proposal: The “Let’s Talk” program offers an innovative way to make mental health services more accessible, approachable, and effective. Designed as a series of drop-in consultations held in familiar campus settings, the program gives students the chance to have informal conversations with licensed counselors and/or qualified peer advisors.

Meet the Spring 2024 Winners

Challenge:  Reimagining Higher Education

The Spring 2024 Social Innovation Challenge invites students or student groups to propose innovative solutions in the arena of reimagining higher eduction. A student perspective is imperative in the pursuit of ideas that are sustainable, innovative, grounded, and relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Isaiah Chantaca won first place in the challenge for his proposal on Building Native Community Through Mentorship (The Red Path Program). From his proposal:  The Red Path program aims to partner with students of the Freshman and Sophomore level with students of either Senior or Junior status, with a mixture of Alumni, to navigate the crazy world of higher education. The program will feed itself with new students who wish to mentor and then allow for the next class of students to come into the program ready to start the cycle again, and continuing to grow the Native population here on campus to allow for not only more outreach for those students to their communities but events for Native students to be held in more volume here on campus, creating that sense of community and involvement.

Colleen Janey was the first runner up with her proposal The Motherhood Empowerment Group:  Supporting Student Moms.  From her proposal:  The Motherhood Empowerment Group would help reduce the barriers and strains student mothers experience. It will accomplish this through three aspects: facilitated conversations and activities that build community through peer connections, developing and harnessing their inherit abilities, and providing childcare for Women and Gender Equity Center events. Ultimately, the program will help mothers at CSUSM build their sense of community with others of a similar identity, incorporating their personal strengths and experiences to create goals for their future, and achieve social mobility after college.

Blake Fullerton was the second runner up in this challenge with his proposal for Athena, an AI phone calling/SMS integration built of of canvas.  From Blake's proposal:  It calls the student and personally reminds them of the assignments, along with data about the assignments that canvas has, (Description, points, turned in, upcoming assignments, etc..).  Along with reminders, it will be able to do other commands, such as update calendar, schedule meetings, sent texts...The people that will benefit the most from this will be students and adults that have a short attention span and have a hard time remembering what they need to do, hindering their education.

Fall 2023 Challenge:  Accessibility

Students were tasked to propose an innovative solution around accessibility.

Poorvi Datta won first place in this challenge for their innovative approach around accessibility. They will be graduating in May 2024 with a Master's degree in Biology. Poorvi's research and focus are on how to realistically get STEM classrooms to universally provide (edited) captioned recorded lectures. Read more on Poorvi's research

Erin Hila and Liam Martinez Torres made up the 2nd place team.  Erin is on track to graduate in May 2025 with a degree in Criminology and Justice studies.  She is a passionate activist for, and member of, the disabled community.  Erin strives to better educate others on matters of equality and improve the lives of those affected by disabilities when she can.  Her partner on this project, Liam, will graduate in May 2025 with a degree in Electrical Engineering.  He enjoys applying his technical skills to real-world issues and using technology to empower and make a lasting, meaningful impact on the lives of others.

Spring 2023 Challenge:  Mental Wellness

Students were tasked to propose an innovative solution for recognizing mental wellness. Mental wellness is a deeply rooted and under resourced social problem. The Innovation Hub is proud to announce the visionary concepts proposed by students.

First place winners, Briana Thallmayer, David Boudreaux, and Kelton Argraves, are creating an artificial reality experience that pushes the boundaries of what mental wellness could be presented as.  Students create a visual representation of where you want to be at and where you're at mentally. 

Second place winner, Jorge Miranda, proposed an application that empowers users to navigate the complex digital landscape with confidence and clarity. "Reality Check" swiftly detects fraudulent information, misleading content, and digital alterations.