The Mental Health Xperience is officially underway.

Registration has just closed on the biggest cohort the program has ever seen: 284 students on 62 teams from three universities as of March 26, 2026. The cohort spans the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; and SUNY Binghamton.

Over the next 12 months, those teams will work on a single question: how do you actually move the needle on mental health for college students?

The competition is built to mirror how products get built outside the classroom. Teams move through gates and phases. Define the core problem. Build prototypes. Test with real users. Refine on what they hear. Validate that what they're making actually solves what they set out to solve.  Only the most viable, deployable solutions reach the final round, where teams pitch  expert judges and investors.

Along the way, every team has the full xFoundry support stack: the AI-powered Resource MatriX, the Mission Guide curriculum, mentor office hours, and the Xperts network. Each phase (or gate)?  is built to help students turn ideas into solutions that hold up, while building the kind of experience that shows up well after graduation.

Teams are formed. The challenge is on. The hard work starts now.