Innovation Sprints

In this hands-on pilot program, students from CCNY’s Division of Arts and Humanities and the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership formed interdisciplinary teams to tackle a real world, open-ended challenge for our partner, BeeU NYC.

The challenge:

How might we increase urban beekeeping adoption in New York City to expand employment opportunities, activate communities and generate environmental impact?

Working with Bethany Crystal from Buildfirst.AI, students have used generative AI tools to analyze primary research documents, built custom GPTs to help challenge their ideas, and explored vibe-coding to create web apps to work with NYC Open Data.

We also had excellent discussions on responsible use of AI with Feygens Saint-Joy, and presentation skills with Brenda Jimenez. 

This pilot program was supported by the CUNY Office of Academic Affairs’ AI Innovation Fund.

Check out the winning ideas and teams below!

First Place Prize - $2,500

Nabeeha Alam, Ferdosi Hossain, Jessica Leonardo, and Kazi Mehzabin

HiveBook, an integrated online booking system for BeeU’s hive experiences

Second Place Prize - $1,500

Li Kuan Phang and Natalia Sakowski

QueenBee, an agentic operating system to streamline BeeU’s operations and prepare them for a fundraising push.

Third Place Prize - $1,000

Juky Chen Wei Ling, Daniel Troubetzkoy, and Milo Ware

A customized chatbot to help BeeU research new potential partners

Forty City College of New York students challenged themselves in this fall’s Innovation Sprint, meeting a sustainability challenge presented by Empire State Realty Trust (ESRT). Empire State Realty Trust are owners, managers, and operators of the Empire State Building as well as multiple other office, commercial, and residential buildings in New York City. Joseph House, Manager, Building Sustainability Performance at ESRT, and current student in the CCNY Sustainability in the Urban Environment program was a key partner with the Zahn Innovation Center.

Starting from a kickoff event on Friday, October 10 through final presentations on Friday October 17, CCNY students formed interdisciplinary teams and worked tirelessly to develop a variety of innovative solutions for waste minimization and diversion in Empire State Realty Trust’s commercial portfolio.

The Zahn Innovation Center staff hosted mini-sessions on primary market research, prototyping and testing, and presentation skills and provided informal mentoring throughout the week. Joseph House and Jake Weinberger, EHS/Sustainability Coordinator at CCNY also held office hours to answer questions and provide feedback. And in person co-working hours at the Zahn Innovation Center provided students a comfortable place to interact as they researched, brainstormed, prototyped, and polished their pitches.

Seven teams presented their ideas to judges from ESRT’s sustainability and operations team, with solutions ranging from AI-enabled waste bins, organics digesters, connections to community-based composting organizations, and suggested policy changes at the city government level. Winning third place and sharing the $1,000 prize were Arsh Anand, Francisco Fuentes, Mahdi Islam, John Olasdu, and Sadman Rahim for their pitch advocating for Property Tax Incentives. Second place and a $1,500 prize went to Sehr Abrar, Aarush Kumar, Luisiana Marmolejos, Lily Minchala, Fridaoz Rasheed, and Tram Tran, for their pitch introducing Stuart, a smart waste scanner incorporating education, competition and gamification. First place and the $2,500 prize was awarded to Aziz Irfan, Syed Mahmood, Li Kuan Phang, and Maria Popova for their AI-powered waste sorting system emphasizing speed and ease of use for busy office worker tenants along with employee training and incentive programs.

Reflecting on the event, one student commented, “This challenge was unique in that the challenge was so open ended, and so niche at the same time… It forced me to think outside of my normal thought flow, which is exactly the reason I love to join these types of events.” Another reflected, “It’s really easy to have disagreements and then just want to give up … But what you learn is to talk about your disagreements, and communicate, and I honestly didn’t expect to learn that communication was such a big deal. I think it’s a really good lesson to learn -- if you have a disagreement, don’t give up. Keep going, and stick up for yourself, be open-minded, maybe you are wrong and maybe you are right!” Joseph House was enthusiastic about what the students presented, “I was giving my Senior VP (Dana Robbins Schneider) previews of what the teams were working on and we were so excited to learn more about what these teams were working on and seeing what we might actually be able to implement!”

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. Vesta 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. WeSuap 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. Axcces 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. 

In Fall 2024, about 40 CCNY students participated in a week-long sprint working with Deloitte on increasing engagement with GenZ for the LA2028 Olympic Games.

In Spring 2024, more than 70 CUNY students participated in a 4-day Innovation Sprint solving challenges presented by Deloitte, L'Oreal, and Blackstone's Technology and Innovation Group.