How it works
The Idea Challenge is a statewide contest for North Carolina — students in grades 5–12 and teachers, on two parallel tracks. You don’t need experience. You don’t need an adult. You just need an idea about something you’ve noticed in your school, neighborhood, town, or community. You can write, talk, brainstorm, or design your way into your idea, and you can keep coming back to make it better.
The window + the money
Submissions are rolling from June 15 to October 15, 2026. Submit any day — we review within 3 business days and come back with a yes or a no.
- ✦ Students: $1,000 flat on yes. Up to $10,000 more when objectives are met.
- ✦ Teachers: you ask for what you need on the entry ($100–$5,000). A yes funds the amount you asked for. Up to $10,000 more when objectives are met.
- ✦ Pool: $500K total — $250K students + $250K teachers. No cap on winners per track.
The prompt
Just one question: What’s your idea to help your community?
What you submit
A 1–2 minute video — just you, on camera, explaining your idea. We give you a recorder right in your browser. Take as many tries as you want; only your chosen take counts.
Help if you want it (optional)
Not everyone has a parent, teacher, or older sibling to brainstorm with. The wealth-gap version of that imbalance is exactly what this challenge is built to neutralize. So we’re lining up volunteer human helpers — adults who’ll spend 15 minutes with any student who wants to think their idea through. By Zoom, email, or phone.
Helpers ask questions, give honest notes, and — if it helps — can walk a student through using AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) the student may already have access to. They don’t write the idea. That’s yours.
Email hello@exponentialscholars.org to get connected.
How we judge
Four things: Real Problem (do you know it firsthand?), Original Thinking (is the angle yours?), Initiative (have you already tried something, even tiny?), and Heart (why does this matter to you?). Reviewers also weigh specificity — naming exactly whose life changes beats vague generalities.
Is this fair?
Everyone who enters gets the same AI tools. Polish doesn’t win on this rubric — an entry whose video is a little stumbly but whose idea is rooted and original beats one with a slick pitch about something the entrant read about online.
Who’s behind this?
A program of Exponential Scholars, a North Carolina nonprofit. We especially want to hear from students and teachers in communities where contests like this don’t usually go.
Teachers: you have your own track — same prompt, same rubric, parallel pool.
Counselors, librarians, club leaders, parents, friends: be a champion — there’s a page for how to spread the word, nominate a kid, or run a 45-minute session.