xfoundry

Turn global challenges into experience that prepares students for tomorrow.

xFoundry brings students across disciplines together to tackle real challenges, build validated products, and develop the skills, judgment, and confidence that come from doing the work.
‍

Register for Horizons Challenge II →
Explore the challenge: BEFORE YOU SHARE XPERIENCE →
Read about the NASA Space Act agreement →
ANNOUNCEMENTs

Introducing Before You Share Xperience

Every post has a backstory. Build the tool that brings it into view. Bring together a multidisciplinary team to reconnect digital content with its sources and missing context, and compete for investment in Before You Share Xperience, xFoundry’s newest student venture competition.

"The challenge of our times will be to enable the individual to apply the media, now essentially accessible to all, to the task of separating reality from an encroaching universe of AI slop. It’s a worthy challenge."
‍
– Ted Koppel, veteran broadcast journalist, and an advisor on the competition
read the story
Digital posts reconnect with their sources and supporting context in an illustration for Before You Share Xperience.

Five more years with NASA

NASA and the University System of Maryland have signed a five-year Space Act Agreement, and xFoundry is leading it. Our programs connect students at every USM institution to NASA's real technology challenges through the NEXPLORE Summit and the Horizons Challenge.

175K+

university students with access to NASA's problems

15

institutions and regional centers

read the story
NASA's Artemis rocket launching from its pad with bright flames and large clouds of smoke billowing at the base against a clear blue sky, with launch tower and communication structures on either side.
Active competitions

Get
involved

Registration Open

Before You Share Xperience

Build the tool people reach for before they share. Form a multidisciplinary team to create a product that brings back the source and missing context behind a post, and compete for investment in Before You Share, xFoundry's newest Xperience.

Registration Open

Horizons Challenge II

Compete with students nationwide in Horizons Challenge II, run in partnership with NASA. Choose a focus area, define a problem worth solving, and compete to help shape the next Xperience.

xFoundry in action
Partner with us

Experience that starts before graduation

xFoundry creates the programs and connections that bring students from every discipline together around consequential problems. They build, collaborate, and work with the rigor, pace, and stakes of the real world, gaining professional experience before they graduate.

Join the alliance
A young man in a blue suit and red tie with a name badge speaks to a woman with blonde hair in a patterned shirt, while a woman with long black hair in a black blazer stands beside him, and two other adults listen in the background near a University of Maryland sign.
A diverse group of young adults gathered around a table in a collaborative workspace, with one woman leaning forward and actively discussing while pointing at a laptop screen displaying a document.

Alliance Members

our Programs

From the first question
to the next big step.

Horizons challenge

Start with a question to explore

Student teams dive into industry-defined focus areas, uncover unmet needs, and define a problem worth solving before anyone starts building. Finalists pitch at the NEXPLORE Summit, and the winning team receives $2,040 and sets the stage for the next Xperience competition.

Explore Horizons Challenge
A diverse group of seven young adults standing on stage smiling and holding a large ceremonial check for $250,000 made out to Team Defenx dated 9/11/25, with memo stating investment; one person holds a raised trophy, and the University of Maryland logo is visible in the background.
Xperience

See how far an idea can go

Over 12–18 months, multidisciplinary teams research, prototype, test, and develop their ideas, learning what it takes to build a product and a company from the ground up.

Explore Xperience
Two young adults assembling metal frames on a wooden table in a workshop, smiling and working collaboratively with tools nearby.
Xpand

Step into an industry-defined challenge

Xpand connects curated teams with focused challenges from industry, government, and prize partners. Over 6–12 months, teams develop a solution, with the opportunity to earn a contract, investment, or prize, or to launch a company.

EXPLORE XPAND
Group of seven diverse young adults gathered around a table in a modern workspace, some standing and some seated, engaged in discussion and reviewing papers with laptops and smartphones on the table.
Xcelerate

Take your MVP beyond the finish line

Teams that qualify through Xperience or Xpand get up to six months of executive, legal, technical, and pitch support to strengthen their MVP and build a company investors can back.

Explore Xcelerate
A diverse group of nine young adults gathered around a table in a modern workspace, focused on two laptops as one person types while others watch attentively.
Four students sitting at a table working together, one writing notes on paper while the others observe and discuss.NEXPLORE event photoGroup of people standing outdoors in front of two red and one white tents with a University of Maryland logo on one, surrounded by trees under a blue sky, with four drones or drone-like devices placed on the pavement in front of them and a white truck on the right side.A group of seven young people standing on stage at University of Maryland holding an oversized check for $250,000 made out to Team DefenX with memo labeled Investment; one woman is raising a trophy above her head and another woman is holding a microphone.
The latest, all in one place

Explore opportunities and highlights from xFoundry. Click through to see what's new and discover ways to get involved.

News and announcements
Impact
Report 2025
Our Xperts
What will you
NEXPLORE?
April 06–07, 2027
You're doing fearless innovation. You're going to change the human condition. And for that, I salute you.
Jay Perman, MD
Chancellor, University System of Maryland
It is critical that you interact with broad disciplines in order to solve problems. You bring multiple disciplines to the table in order to find the best solution, fastest.
Samuel Graham, Ph.D.
Dean, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland
This is a watershed moment for the University of Maryland. This is the most innovative ecosystem that we could have ever created.
Darryll Pines, Ph.D.
President, University of Maryland
These are the kind of minds that we need to bring together because in order for us to innovate, it really takes people that are accustomed to thinking outside the box
Christyl Johnson, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and GP, Andromeda Ventures
Having a program like xFoundry that interacts and touches on all the colleges in the university is very important.
Amitabh Varshney, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, University of Maryland
By collectively bringing these different entities together, I think our students will have a profound impact on these really important problems. So I am super excited about the prospect of our students being involved in this.
Sarah L.J. Michel, Ph.D.
Dean, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
Participating in multidisciplinary efforts like xFoundry will enhance our ability to truly embody and pursue the goals of our community.
Kimberly Griffin, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Education, University of Maryland
When different teams with diverse skills come together for a real-world project, the collaboration results in a great idea.
Prabhudev Konana, Ph.D.
Dean, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
We're so interested in xFoundry because we need to get people who understand not just how to have a big concept, but also how to ensure that concept truly drives impact
Stacey Shulman
VP, Health, Education & Consumer Industries, Intel
Join the xFoundry Alliance

‍Partner with us to launch scalable ventures that solve global grand challenges.

partner with us