Community College Innovation Challenge (CCIC)
Advancing Student Innovation & Impact

The CCIC is led by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is a national competition where community college student teams, working with a faculty or administrator mentor, use science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to innovate solutions to real-world problems; participate in an Innovation Boot Camp; and compete for cash awards.

The Innovation Boot Camp will be held in Washington, D.C. on June 9-12, 2025. The Boot Camp provides professional development, mentoring, and coaching designed to build strategic communication and entrepreneurial skills to help students advance their innovations in both the private and public sectors.

The event culminates in a poster session and engagement opportunity with STEM leaders and Congressional stakeholders on Capitol Hill, and a pitch presentation in front of a panel of industry and entrepreneurial professionals to determine the first, second, and third place winning teams.

The national CCIC is designed to enable community college students to discover and demonstrate their capacity to use STEM to make a difference in the world and to translate that knowledge into action.

AACC is pleased to announce the 12 finalist teams selected for this year’s competition.

·       Bergen Community College (New Jersey)
Project: Pop-Up Hydroponic Farms Made From Recycled Materials

·     Coalinga College (California)
Project: The Dream Team Burn Care Innovation 

·       Dallas College (Texas)
Project: Team AVIADAR – Alerts VIA Detection and Ranging 

·       Des Moines Area Community College (Iowa)
Project: Smart Tapering Vaporizer with AI-Coaching – AI-CQD

·        Henry Ford College (Michigan)
Project: SunSync – Smart Blind System for Comfort and Energy Saving

·        Houston Community College (Texas)
Project: The NanoSense Mask

·        Holyoke Comunity College (Massachusetts)
Project: Green Computer Processing – Reducing Data Energy Consumption

·       Irvine Valley College (California)
Project: Defend LA – Automatic Fire Prevention System

·        J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College (Virginia)
Project: Automated Street-Cleaning Robot 

·        Middlesex Community College (Massachusetts)
Project: InSight

·        Perimeter College at Georgia State University (Georgia)
Project: RoyaNest – Neonatal Thermoregulation Made Simple

·       Tulsa Community College (Oklahoma)
Project: Portal – An Integrated Drone Delivery Solution

To view the press release for the CCIC finalist teams, click here.