Nancy Conrad, founder and chairman of the Conrad Foundation, has officially launched the 2011-2012 Spirit of Innovation Challenge to encourage students to create technologies and products that solve global issues. The challenge invites high school teams to use STEM skills in developing commercially viable, technology-based products.
Interested student teams draft an online abstract that addresses five questions about their innovative idea for first-round judging. From there, selected semi-finalists in each challenge category – Aerospace Exploration, Clean Energy, and Health and Nutrition – develop a business plan, technical plan and graphical representation of the team’s product or innovation. The top five teams from each category will travel to the annual Innovation Summit, hosted at NASA-Ames Research Center (Moffitt Field, CA), March 29-31, 2012, where they present their innovations and vie for awards and commercialization opportunities.
