optiMize Campus Chapters

Our vision is to transform higher education — starting with the University of Michigan, but expanding well beyond. We hope to inspire global change, but we're starting in our home state of Michigan. In the next five years, we want optiMize to be a staple at universities across the state.

OptimizeWayne

In 2015, Limi Sharif was a first year Wayne State student who participated in the optiMize Challenge in Ann Arbor on a team with several Michigan students. After that year, Limi told us she wanted to bring the optiMize model to Wayne State. We agreed to let her use the name OptimizeWayne and to provide mentorship and support as they worked to get it off the ground. Years later, Limi and her co-founder Kavya have now graduated, and OptimizeWayne enters its fourth year as a thriving organization that has incubated more than 150 projects and awarded more than $125,000 to the most promising teams. Today, they’re working to create a sustainable institutional model at Detroit's premier university.

OptimizeEastern

Since early 2018, OptimizeEastern has been cultivating a supportive community of social innovators on Eastern Michigan University’s campus in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Learn more about their work below!