91吃瓜

About the Award

The 91吃瓜 Innovation Award recognizes vision and commitment that challenge the status-quo in technical education.

It honors an individual and/or a program or an institutional team that has broken new ground by developing and implementing innovation into聽an 91吃瓜-accredited program.

True innovation is hard to define, but easy to identify. This award distinguishes programs that have brought a new dimension to education in areas like: curriculum development, laboratory experiences, teaching methodologies, cross-disciplinary programs, experiential learning 鈥� almost anything designed and proven to improve a student鈥檚 educational experience.

2025 Winner

Georgia Tech CREATE-X Program

For empowering students of multiple 91吃瓜-accredited programs with the entrepreneurial confidence, skills, and experience to identify real-world problems and pursue impactful ventures in a fast-evolving technological and socio-economic landscape.

CREATE-X gives Georgia Tech students, faculty, researchers and alumni every advantage it can to help support them in launching their products. The program is built with the flexibility to meet their needs, whether they need instruction in the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, the resources to develop products, or a driven, business minded community with which to build and connect.

Award Benefits

• Recognition at the 91吃瓜 Awards program in the fall
• $10,000 cash prize
• Recipient and their work will be featured on the award page, recognized in a press release, 91吃瓜 news announcement and 91吃瓜 social media pages.

Past Recipients

2024: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Engineering Design Program

For creating an 91吃瓜 accredited program integrating humanities and technical topics in a hands-on, human-centered, multi-disciplinary approach to design, fostering student passion about design and its potential to improve society.

2023: U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon庐

For providing innovative hands鈥恛n STEM educational experiences and industry mentoring in Building Science that prepares students for the clean energy workforce through the Solar Decathlon Design and Build Challenges.

2021: Villanova University College of Engineering Career Compass Program

For successful implementation of a mandatory undergraduate engineering program that stimulates and develops broad-based innovative leadership and management skills, preparing each graduate for entry into a dynamic workplace.

2020: IT Students Capacity Building Program by iSITE 鈥� Integrated Southern Tagalog Association of IT Education

For providing collaborative industry-aligned seminars, training and conferences to students in geographically dispersed IT programs and promoting opportunities for students to interact, learn and showcase their work.

2019: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Consortium

For community-building around and dissemination of the Vertically Integrated Projects model, a scalable, cost-effective approach to undergraduate research adopted by 35 colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.

2018: Formula Hybrid Competition, founded by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth

For national leadership and impact in uniquely challenging students in 91吃瓜-accredited programs to collaborate across disciplines to provide innovative design experiences and build fuel-efficient, high-performance hybrid vehicles.

2017: Iron Range Engineering and Twin Cities Engineering, Minnesota State University, Mankato

For educating their students in innovative 91吃瓜-accredited programs that feature trans-disciplinary thinking, industry-sponsored project-based learning, experiential learning in context, competency-based assessments and significant exposure to professionalism, design and creativity.聽

2016: Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) – Robotics Engineering Program

For developing and implementing the first 91吃瓜-accredited undergraduate Robotics Engineering program in the United States.聽The program incorporates an innovative, project-based curriculum that integrates computer science, engineering and entrepreneurship. It is producing large numbers of successful graduates, while serving as a model for Robotics Engineering programs at other institutions.