Introducing the 2023 Wright Collegiate Challenge Partners
Each year, The Wright partners with organizations representing a mix of business and nonprofit organizations to present a set of challenges reflecting real issues being addressed in real-time by selected Challenge Partner organizations. Interested businesses and nonprofits are asked to submit a proposed challenge statement summarizing a specific project for students to address. We’re excited to present our 2023 Challenge Partners, who will be working closely with student teams over the coming months.
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Angler’s Covey is looking to solve the issue of overcrowding on rivers throughout the summer on waters within two hours of Colorado Springs.
We are looking to find a creative solution for Angler’s Covey to communicate about where we are fishing, on any given day, in an easily accessible and efficient way. The goal is the evenly disperse anglers on Colorado lakes, rivers, and streams to prevent crowding, which in turn leads to stressing wildlife in the busy months. We are looking to solve this issue regionally in hopes that could eventually grow to impact the fishing community on a larger scale.
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Publishing responsible and reliable guidebooks, maps and apps for backcountry skiers and riders. Beacon displays and sells our products in 90+ stores nationwide with rapid expansion into new regions. We currently use plastic display fixtures in these retail stores for nearly all of our products. As we expand, we would like our display fixtures to be plastic-free.
Our challenge is to research, design, and move towards the production of a series of cost-effective, environmentally-friendly display fixtures that will maximize our merchandising and brand awareness while also meeting retailer requirements for sizing and storage.
Specifically, we are looking to transition from plastic display fixtures to fixtures made of wood and metal for all of our retail shops in Colorado and Washington as well as the 21 REI locations that distribute our products. The project will move from design and budgeting to sourcing and production and will require out-of-the-box thinking and creativity to overcome obstacles.
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One of the bright lights of hope to revitalize the West End area of Colorado is the 50+ miles of single track trails that have been master planned. With the loss of mining, many communities are making the transition from extraction to outdoor recreation, but it's a challenging transition. Is there a way we (communities) can work better with the government agencies to balance the studies and requirements and get things done in a timely manner for recovery? How does this process compare to a mining operation on public lands?
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Galena is a small company that makes Leadville-inspired adventure guidebooks, pearl snap shirts, and other apparel. Our challenge is a two-pronged marketing project that will expand the company's reach to other areas in Central Colorado and increase grassroots community-based marketing in Leadville. The deliverable will be a two-year local and regional marketing plan that includes potential campaigns, channels to be used, budget, and a projection for success.
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Grip Bouldering wants to promote participation with stewardship in local climbing areas throughout all communities of Grand Junction. The WCCC (Western Colorado Climbers Coalition) does monthly cleanups already, but attendance is quite low. Knowing that there are hundreds of active climbers in the Grand Junction area, what is a way we can make these clean-ups more accessible and increase attendance throughout the year?
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Skateparks, although sometimes overlooked, are an integral part of recreating in the outdoors. Colorado has over 200 skateparks, with only about twenty skater-owned and operated skate shops. Many skate shops and Colorado-based skateboard companies are involved in supporting local skate programs and nonprofits that promote building a positive, inclusive skate culture. The challenge is to introduce, network, and create a support system for existing programs across the state that are striving to reach the same goals. The collaboration of programs has the potential to make a significant change in the skating community - from building new parks, supporting small businesses, introducing new users, and offering more youth-driven activities.
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More sustainable outdoor recreation solutions are needed as rural communities see more visitors than ever. Enter Tin Can Camp, a new initiative of SLV GO! that will provide off-grid cabin rental opportunities via Hipcamp starting in the Spring of 2023. This will generate funds to support the SLV Great Outdoors Action Team's (SLV GOATS) regional work in trail restoration, construction, and natural resource stewardship projects. Is this one solution to balancing how we promote our rural destinations to novice campers? How do we ensure we are doing the most we can to protect the natural resources in culturally and ecologically sensitive public land areas like the San Luis Valley? A marketing strategy for Tin Can Camp that balances these two goals is what we are after.
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Our challenge is to create a sustainable carbon-negative sandboard fabricated with locally sourced renewable materials. The substrate has the potential to carry over into other outdoor recreation equipment as well. By utilizing local materials, we can further reduce carbon emissions, as well as use the sun for clean, lean manufacturing in Southern Colorado.
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TripOutside is on a mission to get more people outside to connect with nature and love the outdoors, and as a result, work to protect our wild places. TripOutside makes it easy to book human-powered outdoor adventures from the best local outfitters and guides.
Our challenge is how to get more people outdoors without disrupting the communities and ecosystems they recreate in. We want to work with the outfitters and guides we feature, as well as local non-profits, DMOs, and visitor bureaus, to create and promote more regenerative experiences and amplify the work these organizations are doing on TripOutside.
Regenerative experiences consider the local community, wildlife, environment, and the visitor in the tourism journey and focus on making tourism less extractive. TripOutside’s goal is to help our users to improve (or regenerate) the outdoor places that they recreate. Through this challenge, we’d like to create a playbook for a destination in Colorado that we can then scale to other destinations. This will include working with local outfitters, guides, non-profits, DMOs, and visitor bureaus to 1) discover what types of regenerative experiences already exist, 2) jointly create more regenerative outdoor adventures, and 3) determine the best way to promote these experiences and help TripOutside users give back through their recreation by booking regenerative adventures.
