xFoundry to lead the NASA and USM Space Act Agreement

175,000+ USM students can now work directly on NASA's technology priorities.

XPERIENCE

Context before belief.

Build a consumer product that puts missing context back into digital media.

Register on ConneXions

Registration closes Feb 28, 2027 · start the day you register.

18
Months
3–6
Students per team
3+
Disciplines
US & Canada
University wide
$1M
Proposed SAFE*

*$1M SAFE from Xponential Venture Fund is proposed for the winning team, subject to a signed fund commitment, Horizons Council ratification, and structured diligence.

The problem

We currently consume media with the majority of its original context stripped away.

A clip without the full exchange. A headline without the article. A quote without what came before or after. A label without its meaning.

What we see online is often only a fragment of the original story. Most people can tell when something feels incomplete, misleading, or exaggerated. But finding out what's missing takes work. The original video may be buried. The full article may sit behind a paywall. A summary may technically be accurate while leaving out the detail that changes how you understand it.

By the time someone tracks down the source, compares versions, and reconstructs the full picture, the fragment has already traveled.

The problem isn't a lack of information. It's the gap between what we see and the context we need to understand it.

Your challenge is to close that gap.

A row of people standing outdoors, each focused on their smartphones, with the foreground person tapping on the screen.
By the numbers
41%

of U.S. teens say they were misled by content that was real but presented misleadingly.

ITU, Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Figures 2024 → Link

77%

of the news influencers sampled have no newsroom or journalism background

Pew Research Center / Pew-Knight Initiative, America's News Influencers, November 2024 → Link

40%

of people now say they avoid the news, a record high and up from 29% in 2017

Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2025, June 2025 → Link

What you'll build

A private tool that restores context at the moment someone needs it.

When someone encounters content, your product helps them see: where it came from, who said it, what credible sources say, where those sources disagree, and what still can't be verified. It doesn't replace anyone's judgment; it gives their judgment more to work with.

The tool surfaces content for only the user, and it doesn't publish ratings, judgments, or profiles about the people behind the content.

Your tool should surface the background:

+The fuller source behind a fragment
+Who made the claim, and whether their stated expertise matches the subject
+Sourced, plain-language definitions of loaded or technical terms
+Where credible sources agree, where they genuinely differ, and what cannot be verified
+How consistently other sources describe the same thing
+Credible next places to look
+The persuasive techniques a piece uses, described rather than judged
The architecture is open

AI agent

An assistant that retrieves the fuller source behind a fragment and reports what it can and cannot verify.

On-device model

Local inference for speed and privacy, with no round trip and no record of what the user looked at.

Browser extension

Context delivered in place, inside the page where the content is already being read.

Mobile companion

A share-sheet or overlay path that works where most feed consumption actually happens.

Video or link analyzer

Transcript retrieval, clip-to-full-exchange matching, and source tracing for a pasted link.

Glass wall in a modern building covered with colorful sticky notes and technical architectural drawings, overlooking people walking in a garden courtyard outside.A group of seven people standing on a stage holding a large ceremonial check from the University of Maryland for $250,000 made out to Team DefenX dated 9/11/25; one person is raising a trophy in celebration.
Success metrics

What judges weigh at the final rounds.

Solutions will be evaluated on the following success metrics to ensure investment-grade scalability and market viability.

Voluntary use

The pathway from access to voluntary use. Having the tool is not the same as reaching for it.

Platform survivability

Whether the product would survive a platform turning hostile.

Resistance to manufactured controversy

Whether the product can tell genuine debate from controversy that was manufactured to look like debate.

Provenance under load

Whether every consequential output still traces to a linked source when the product is running at feed speed.

Why it's worth 18 months

Real-world experience and an investment-ready product.

You start with a grand challenge, build a multidisciplinary team around it, and spend the competition turning your response into something real, a working product and a hire-ready body of proof employers actually care about.

Shipping, with users

A consumer product in production, with users, telemetry, and a defensible business, on your record whether or not you win the investment.

A real open question

Nobody has yet built a context product that people return to voluntarily. Whether a student team can is an honest question with an answer at the end of 18 months.

Built to outlast the model

AI capability will keep moving. Part of the test is building something that gets better as models improve rather than something a model update makes obsolete.

$1M SAFE

For the winning venture, subject to fund commitment, Council ratification, and diligence.

Who this is for

This problem will not be solved by one major.

It needs people who understand information, people, systems, interfaces, technology, behavior, institutions, and business. These examples highlight the value that certain majors can bring to the table but this is far from an exhaustive list. If you are interested, we want you here.

01Journalism & Communications

How information is created, framed, distributed, and understood.

02Psychology / policy / information science

How people process evidence, make judgments, and navigate institutions.

03Design & HCI

How complicated information becomes clear, useful, and usable.

04Computer science & machine learning

How products retrieve, evaluate, connect, and explain information at scale.

05Business

How a useful idea becomes a product people adopt and a venture that can endure.

06Art, film & media production

How a clip is cut, framed, and scored to carry a meaning the raw footage never had.

Your team must span at least three disciplines. The strongest one may span more.

Eligibility

You do not need a company, a product idea, or a business background to enter. You need a team willing to take on the problem.

+18+, U.S. or Canadian university
+Sophomore+, grad student, or alum ≤ 24 months
+Team of 3–6, spanning 3+ disciplines
Two women writing and discussing ideas on a whiteboard filled with colorful sticky notes organized around the central word 'Stakeholders', which is connected to categories like Kids, School Grounds, and Companies.
Partners
Two overlapping dark blue chevron shapes pointing left on a transparent background.

Xponential Venture Fund

Backing ideas built to become companies. Xponential Venture Fund supports the venture-development path beyond the competition, including the proposed $1M SAFE for the winning company, subject to fund commitment, Council ratification, and diligence.

Partner logo

Horizons Council institutions

Horizons Council institutions help shape the challenge, connect students and expertise across campuses, and expand Xperience beyond a single university.

Join ConneXions to get started.

Register now →
Opens September 1, 2026 · Closes February 28, 2027 · info@xfoundry.org