Over the years, the SPARK Social Innovation Challenge (once known as the Spark Tank) has

evolved in multiple ways. The challenge was originally conceived in 2015 in association with the
Grinnell Prize, an annual award granted to accomplished individuals from all over the world who
are committed to social change and innovation. SPARK aims to prepare and inspire the students
of Grinnell College to strive for the same level of achievement as Grinnell Prize winners on a
more local scale. Previous SPARK projects, such as Lunchtime Language Learners and the
Grinnell-Newburg High School Student Resource Center, have provided many College students
the opportunity to get involved with the community and become essential parts of student life.

SPARK is a community-oriented project; in the past, community partners identified local

problems. Students were then assigned to teams that would work alongside these community
partners to come up with an effective solution that properly addresses the community’s needs.

Although SPARK projects are typically targeted towards problems in the broader Grinnell town
community, due to shifting leadership in the CLS, the focus of 2020’s young entrepreneurs was
sustainability on campus, an ongoing mission of the College. The winner of the 2020 SPARK
Challenge, Sharene Gould Dulabaum, centered her project around the major problem of excess
waste on campus. Dulabaum proposed a new system of centralized waste bins, separated for
compost, landfill, and recycling, that would make it easier for students to properly sort their
waste and could potentially save the College thousands of dollars.

Students interested in participating in the SPARK Social Innovation Challenge were required to
register for or audit a one-credit short course taught by Wilson Center Director and Associate
Professor of Anthropology Monty Roper. The course, which will also be offered in the
upcoming Spring Term 1, is essentially a crash course in applied research and anthropological
fieldwork, topics that Roper himself specializes in. Participants in the course learn how to
conduct human-centered research that integrates community members into the process of
identifying a problem and working to solve it. Roper also invites a variety of guest speakers to
talk to students about things such as public speaking and pitching idea proposals. The course
culminates in students presenting their projects to a panel of expert judges who choose the
winner, who receives up to $15,000 to fund their project.

This year, due to the scattering of College students taking online classes all across the world, the
prompt for identifying community-based problems will be much more open. Students will be
encouraged to work in their own backyard, wherever they may be geographically located. Roper
stressed the importance of students working and identifying problems in communities that they
personally are a part of and invested in.