How might we partner with students, families, and communities to co-design solutions to serve those furthest from opportunity?

This year marks the 4th year of The Chicago Public Education Fund’s Design Challenge, in partnership with Leadership+Design. Since its inception, more than 45 teams have competed and received over $150,000 in prize money, as well as support in implementing innovative, human-centered solutions to students who most need them.

We are excited to have you join this year’s challenge and look forward to being on this learning and design journey alongside your team and the students you serve.

Learning and Applying Design Thinking

The design challenge is focused on applying design thinking (also known as human-centered design) to a school-specific challenge impacting a priority focus group of students, staff, or caregivers. 

It's up to your design team to choose:

• A new or existing design opportunity/ challenge to address in your school community.
• A priority focus group whose needs you aim to understand and address.The priority focus group can be students, teachers, caregivers, or others in your community that can impact learning outcomes for students. 

All projects should use design thinking to learn from and with your priority group, and then build, iterate, or test solutions to increase the impact of services at your school.

Each school has different needs and levels of readiness for change or existing change efforts, so we are not prescribing the focus, but will offer additional prizes for certain priority areas. 

Tools for Success in the Design Challenge

The challenge is designed to be a supportive process for schools to apply a human-centered lens on decision making and solution design. While there are cash prizes, a core goal is to improve the learning experience and outcomes for those furthest from opportunity in Chicago’s public schools. To support as many teams as possible in completing the challenge, we have designed the following support tools:

• The 2025 Design Challenge "Course" is an asynchronous learning module where teams can review design thinking methodologies and tools. These include step-by-step guides and templates for how to complete each of the required Milestone Deliverables.
  
• Milestone Deliverables for each component necessary to complete the design challenge. These deliverables will be evaluated to determine which teams become finalists, and eligible for prizes. Milestones can be submitted as they are completed along with the recommended timeline, or at a timeline best for your team. All Milestone Deliverables are due no later than April 9, 2025 at 5pm. 
  
  • Milestone #1: 60-90 Second Project Introduction Video
  • • Sample Milestone #1 Video  (Link to Video)
  • Milestone #2: 1-2 Page Executive Summary (PDF)
  • Sample Milestone #2: Executive Summary
  • Customizable Milestone #2 Template (Make a copy)

• Milestone #3: 10-Slide Project Summary Deck (PDF or LINK) 
• Sample Milestone #3: 10 Slide Presentation
• Customizable Milestone #3 Template (Make a copy)

• Webinars designed to explain in greater detail the relevant stages of the design thinking process to support teams using it for the first time, or who want to refresh their skills and knowledge. They’ll also cover how and what to submit each Milestone of the Challenge. You will receive invites to each session.
  • 1/29- Launch Webinar Recording
  • 2/12 Empathy Webinar Recording (Approx. 35 Mins)
  • 3/12 Prototyping Webinar Recording (Approx. 30 Mins)

• Coaching Sessions with Leadership+Design are available for interested teams at any point during the 2025 Design Challenge. If you feel stuck or need additional guidance, reach out to schedule a session.

• Rubric for Milestone Deliverables- Here is how submissions will be evaluated.