Plan to Attend Innovate to Grow or Volunteer as a Judge

Now is the time to register to attend this year's Innovate to Grow (I2G) competition and see some of the 66 student engineering teams present their solutions to real-world engineering challenges.

And if you would like to be a judge, organizers want to hear from you as soon as possible. You do not need any formal preparation or an engineering degree. Judges are just asked to offer valuable feedback based on their life experiences and fill out their scorecards based on each presentation and its question-and-answer session. You can register and select the “judge” ticket.

I2G is the School of Engineering’s annual showcase of student creativity and training. The event began in 2012 as an expo to spotlight the achievements of graduating seniors who had completed the school’s Capstone requirement and has grown into a huge event.

Some student teams comprise senior engineering students from the Engineering and Software capstone programs and some are composed of students from the Engineering Service Learning program. But each team is partnered with an agency, nonprofit, business or other organization from the region that needs help devising solutions to its problems. The teams could be asked to work on renewable energy, agriculture, education, transportation, computer, food processing or other challenges.

Each team will present its work at the showcase event on May 13 at UC Merced. There will be a poster and demonstration expo in the Joseph Edward Gallo Gymnasium starting at 9:30 a.m., lunch, followed by presentations in the Classroom and Office Building (COB) and livestreamed via Zoom in the afternoon.

The day will wrap up with awards and a reception starting at 3:45 p.m. in the gym.

The full schedule of events and a complete listing of the student teams and their community partners are available online.