Pitch competition

Pitch us the thing you’re building.

Teen builders pitch a project their community needs. Winners get a mentor and a grant — half on signing, half when they demo a working build.

Enter the pitch contestHow it’s judged

A real person reads every pitch — no fee, no gatekeeper, no deadline pressure.

Top grant per project

$1,500

to ship one real project

Half on signing · half at the demo · teams of 1–3 · $0 to enter

What this is

We fund the students who can’t stop building.

Most students finish a workshop and move on. A few can’t — they keep tinkering, keep asking, keep building the thing after we leave. The pitch competition is for them. It turns a side project into a funded one: a grant up to $1,500, a mentor who’s actually shipped, and a deadline that ends in a working demo, not a grade.

There are two pathways every cycle. Pathway A funds a local environmental problem in the Bay Area. Pathway B funds an issue surfaced by one of our partner schools abroad. Either way, you pitch the problem you want to solve — and you keep everything you make.

How it works

From a paragraph to a demo day.

  1. $0

    Pitch

    Send the idea as a Google Doc or a two-minute video. One paragraph and a link is enough — no entry fee, no finished product required.

  2. Judged

    We score it

    Every pitch is read by a real person and scored against the same rubric — the one below. No slick deck required.

  3. 50%

    Funded

    Selected teams sign a short grant agreement and half the money lands right away, so a good idea never stalls on parts money.

  4. Yours

    Build

    Spend the budget on parts, tools, and shipping. You keep full ownership and IP of everything you make.

  5. 50%

    Demo

    Show it working to unlock the second half of the grant — then run a few sessions teaching what you built back.

The grant, split in two

The 50/50 split is the whole point: half lands the day you sign so a good idea never stalls on parts money, and the other half pays when the build actually works.

On signing

50%

lands right away — buy the parts, start building

At the demo

50%

pays out when you show it working

up to $1,500 per project

The rubric

How pitches are judged.

Every pitch is scored against the same five things. You don’t need to ace all of them — but a strong pitch makes each one easy to say yes to.

  1. 01A real problem

    It solves something a real community actually needs — not a science-fair demo. The more specific the person it helps, the stronger the pitch.

  2. 02Buildable on the budget

    A team of one to three can ship it within $1,500 and a few months. Ambitious is welcome; impossible isn't.

  3. 03Proof you can build

    You've finished things before — a prototype, a repo, a past project, a rough working version. We back evidence over promises.

  4. 04Who it helps, and how much

    Real impact, ideally with a climate or community angle, and ideally something you can deploy where you actually live.

  5. 05A demo you can show

    There's a clear way to prove it works — because the second half of the grant only pays out on a working demo.

What we don’t judge

  • No entry fee, ever
  • No fancy slides — a doc or a two-minute video is enough
  • No finished product required to apply
  • You keep full ownership and IP of everything you build

Ready

Building something already? Send it over.

A paragraph and a link, or a two-minute video. A real person reads every pitch and replies — applications never truly close, so don’t wait for a deadline.

Enter the pitch contestRead the FAQ

Questions first? Talk to us.