From April 4 to 11, the Zahn Innovation Center and Blackstone LaunchPad hosted the Spring 2025 Social Impact Innovation Sprint. This event brought together CCNY students from all majors for a memorable week of creativity, collaboration, and impact.
This semester, we partnered with the Robin Hood Foundation, where six startup founders from their Blue Ridge Labs’ Catalyst Accelerator presented challenges related to their new ventures for our student teams to tackle. Participants formed diverse interdisciplinary teams and started developing innovative solutions to tackle poverty-related challenges in New York City. In one week, students did customer research, rapid ideation, and solution testing. Their work was informed by the startup founders and supported by expert mentorship from the Deloitte and Zahn Center teams.
The sprint culminated in an in-person pitch held at the Robin Hood Foundation headquarters in Manhattan, where teams presented their solutions to a panel of judges for a chance to win cash prizes worth $5,000.
Congratulations to the winning teams
First place ($2500): Supporting Vesta - Muhammad Irfan, Li Kuan Phang. helps immigrants navigate the financial system. The team explored several ways to help Vesta scale its impact by building trust within the communities it serves.
Second place ($1500): Supporting WeSuap - Ibrahima Ndiaye, Sadman Rahin, Kamille Hernandez, Zobia Jamal, and Mahdi Islam. is a skills-trading platform for entrepreneurs with limited access to capital. The team investigated how to adapt this platform for college students looking to build work experience.
Third place ($1000): Supporting Axcces - Da Yuan Zhao, Jayna Kelly, Deborah Auguste, and Sara Kassem. streamlines affordable housing applications, automates eligibility, and optimizes lease-ups with AI-driven workflows. The team created multiple strategies to help Axcces reach its customers on both sides of the market.
Participants described the experience as highly rewarding, citing growth in teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and innovation skills. The students appreciated the opportunity to work on real-world challenges alongside motivated peers. They especially enjoyed collaborating with their teams, applying creative thinking, and engaging with the startup founders and mentors. The opportunity to present their solutions to a panel of judges and their peers expanded their perspectives on what is possible in the world of innovation.
We appreciate all the students who participated in this unique experience to build their entrepreneurship, problem-solving, and social impact innovation skills. A special thank you to our partners from Blue Ridge Labs at the Robin Hood Foundation, Eugene Lewis, and Sergio Marrero, along with their colleagues Anthony Ramos, Jean Morantus, and Kervens Gaston, whose onsite support was invaluable. The six Blue Ridge Labs early-stage startup founders and team members Axcces (Emily Levin), Scientist Maker (Olivia Korchagin), Secured Health (Rich Trinh), Vesta (Darren Liddell and Yanjaa Munkhbat), WeSuap (Cinthya Vasquez), and WorkOnwards (Holly Diamond and Hojin Lee). Our Deloitte/ Immense mentors: Sydney Nagorsky, Yash Agarwal, and Justin Tosi. We’re also grateful to our finale judges: Gaeleen Quinn, Kendall Bedford, and Lawrence Froymovich for their expert insights. Together, we continue to empower the next generation of innovators committed to advancing social good.