Celebrating and Honoring Mental Health Awareness Month!
At optiMize, we practice reflection and intention to raise awareness, breaking down stigma, and fostering a culture of mindfulness, inclusivity, and support for mental well-being all year long. We believe that mental health is crucial for intellectual and communal growth since it is a fundamental aspect of overall well-being. In our mosaic community, we enable everyone to thrive both personally and professionally by being supportive, empathetic, and through active listening. Our commitment to mental health and creating an overall safe and inclusive environment ensures that our ventures not only address critical social issues but also promote a holistic approach to innovation and success. Thus, with our SIC fellows and participants, we always meet the person first to ensure their well-being before we start conversations regarding their ventures. Although it is an integrated year-long practice in our community, we wanted to take a moment to bring social awareness to Mental Health Awareness Month—today.
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Celebrating the Ever-growing AAPI optiMize Community
At optiMize, we are dedicated to cultivating a community where everyone is inspired to work together toward positive change. We celebrate a vibrant mosaic of backgrounds and identities among our members. Our community includes a diverse group of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) visionaries. Today, we are celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the AAPI community.
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Cohort 13 — 2025 Booklet + SHOWCASE VIDEO
We are so excited to present to you the 2025 Booklet, featuring our 32 Social Innovation Challenge teams, 11 Transfer Bridge Fellows, and Organizing Team!
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Reimagined SIC: Part II - MENTORSHIP MODEL
In this blog post, we talk about how we’ve revised our mentorship model in the Social Innovation Challenge, incorporating more in-person elements to increase engagement between mentors and participants. We’ve seen lots of positive feedback and are so excited to share this journey with you!
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Revisiting SIC: Our Alumni Teams are Thriving
optiMize is the largest student-led social innovation program now supporting more than 1,000 students annually in their efforts as they ask themselves “why not me”. This blog shares a few alumni teams who are continuing to make significant progress and impact.
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Reimagined SIC: Part I - PARTICIPANT EXPERIENCE
Learning from feedback, our team took time this summer to reimagine the Social Innovation Challenge — from the curriculum and mentorship model to the involvement of Transfer Bridge Fellows in the SIC! We’ll be presenting these changes through a 3-part blog series, starting with the participant experience and how we updated it from feedback and collaborative change.
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Welcoming the 2024-2025 SIC Challenge leads!
In preparation for the upcoming year’s SIC, six dedicated Support Team Members recently took on new roles as Challenge Leads. We look forward to their leadership next fall as they guide the organizing team in putting on a phenomenal program for our 13th Cohort of Social Innovators. We would love to give a warm welcome to Ava, Kavya, Rishika, Casey and Adhi!
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Introducing our new Graduate Wellness Intern!
We are so excited to introduce you all to Kamryn Attanasio, our new Graduate Wellness Intern to learn more about why she joined the OptiFam!
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Celebrating Pride Month 2024!
Appreciating all LGBTQ+ optiMize Community Members!
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Celebrating AAPI Heritage Month
Appreciating all AAPI optiMize Community Members!
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Cohort 12 — 2024 Booklet
Last October, we received 680 project submissions for the eleventh annual optiMize Social Innovation Challenge. Over the course of the next five months, we hosted the SIC with workshops, mentorship sessions, and community building events to support students working on social impact projects. In February, these teams presented their work and requested up to $10,000 per project.
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optiMize 2023 Holiday Gift Guide
As the holiday season approaches once again, the optiMize team wanted to ease your worries about finding the perfect gift. Many of these local, student-led businesses offer the perfect gifts for your loved ones.
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Introducing our Peer Mentors!
With the SIC underway, our Peer Mentors work to provide support to participants with a unique perspective of having undertaken the challenge themselves. They are a great resource and staff member to lean on with any question that comes to mind and we are so proud of all they have accomplished with their respective projects!
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Introducing our new Associate Director!
We are so excited to introduce you all to Aja Gore, our new Associate Director to learn more about her journey to the University of Michigan and why she joined the opti-team.
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Introducing our new Mentorship & External Engagement Manager!
We are so excited to introduce you all to Candace Curtis-Cavazos, our new Mentorship & External Engagement Manager to learn more about her journey at the University of Michigan, vision for mentorship at optiMize, and why she joined the opti-team.
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An optiMize Playlist
Our staff came together to create a playlist that reminds us of our cherished optiMize community. Read about why staff members added their picks to the playlist, and feel free to listen along!
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opti Summer Book List
We collected book recommendations from the members of our community. Here is a selection of nonfiction, fiction, and more reading recommendations!
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2023 Booklet
We are proud to release our 2023 booklet created by our Creative Team, featuring our funded Social Innovation teams, Transfer Bridge Fellows, and Organizing Team
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A guide for the Holidays: optiMize edition
As the holiday season approaches once again, the optiMize team wanted to ease your worries about finding the perfect gift. Many of these local, student-led businesses offer the perfect gifts for your loved ones.
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