What’s Your Big Idea? Contest for High School

Contest Overview

The Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Arlington ISD and is proud to announce the return of the high school expansion of the What’s Your Big Idea? Entrepreneurship Contest.

Do you have a knack for solving complicated problems with simple solutions? Do you sit around and think about ways to improve your everyday life with new technologies? Then this is the contest for you!

The What’s Your Big Idea? Entrepreneurship Contest invites you and a team of classmates from AISD high schools to tackle real challenges facing your community. Teams of three to five students will come up with an innovative, realistic solution and share their idea through a creative three-minute video pitch.

This contest is all about working together to solve real-world problems. You’ll brainstorm, test ideas, divide responsibilities, and think through how your solution could actually work in real life—from idea to implementation.

Along the way, you’ll build skills that matter beyond the classroom, including teamwork, problem-solving, communication, and entrepreneurial thinking. It’s also a great way to stand out on your resume while turning your ideas into something that could make a real impact.

Contest Theme: What Does Leading in the Future Look Like?

Leading in the future means anticipating change, identifying opportunities, and creating solutions that help people, businesses, and communities thrive – not just adapt.

The future will be shaped by how we respond to changing industries, emerging technologies, evolving community needs, and new economic opportunities. Tomorrow’s leaders won’t simply wait for solutions to appear. They’ll identify challenges, challenge assumptions, and turn bold ideas into businesses that create lasting value.

The next generation of leaders will be the people who recognize opportunities where others see challenges. Through the What’s Your Big Idea? Entrepreneurship Contest, students have the opportunity to think like entrepreneurs, challenge the status quo, and develop innovative solutions that can make a lasting difference in Arlington.

Your idea doesn’t have to change the entire world. It needs to solve a real problem, serve a real customer and have the potential to make our community stronger.

Don’t just imagine the future. Build a business that helps create it.

• Discover: Identify an overlooked problem, unmet need, or emerging opportunity.
• Create: Develop an innovative solution.
• Validate: Demonstrate why it is needed and how it works.
• Sustain: Explain who benefits, who pays, and how the business survives.
• Lead responsibly: Consider who might be excluded, what could go wrong, and how success will be measured.

How to Enter

Step 1: Organize a Team

• Establish a team of three (3) to five (5) members. Teams smaller than three students or larger than five students will be disqualified.
  *Team members do not have to attend the same school and grade level and ages may vary. All students MUST be enrolled in one of the eight (8) AISD high schools.

Step 2: Review the Challenge

• Review each of the four challenges below and decide which one best fits what you and your team want to focus on. YOU CAN ONLY CHOOSE ONE!

Step 3: Get Started

• Brainstorm a new solution for one of the revealed issues. Ensure each team member holds a specific responsibility in the collaborative process.
• Provide detailed solutions to the problem, including all the steps in the process.

Step 4: Generate a Video Pitch

• Communicate your team’s solution in a 2-3 minute video presentation to be attached to your final entry form. Videos less than two or over three minutes will not be evaluated.

Learn More About Our Challenge Sponsor

E-Space is a vertically integrated space technology company headquartered in Arlington, Texas. We design, build, test, and operate advanced satellite systems, while developing the manufacturing capabilities to produce spacecraft at an unprecedented scale.

Our team brings bold ideas to life by combining expertise in spacecraft design, electronics, software, robotics, and advanced manufacturing to solve some of the most complex challenges in the space industry.

As we continue to grow our presence in Arlington, we are committed to inspiring the next generation of innovators, engineers, and problem-solvers. We believe that great ideas can come from anywhere, and today’s young innovators have the potential to shape the future of space technology and beyond.

Contest Challenges

Challenge 1 — Invent What’s Next

TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION & EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES

Context Statement: The future doesn’t belong only to those who adopt new technology. It belongs to those who find new ways to use it. Advances in artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, and digital tools are changing how people live, work, and do business. Yet some of the biggest opportunities emerge when technology is applied to problems that existing products, services, or business models have failed to solve. For Arlington to thrive in a changing economy, innovation must do more than impress us. It must create meaningful value for the people and businesses it serves.

Challenge Statement: Identify a problem that existing products, services, or business models fail to solve effectively and develop an innovative business idea that reimagines what’s possible. Your solution may use emerging technology, an unconventional business model, or an entirely new approach. Demonstrate why your idea is meaningfully different, who would benefit, how it would create value in Arlington, and how you would turn it into a viable business.

Things to Think About and Incorporate into Your Submission

• What problem are you solving, and what evidence suggests current solutions are insufficient?
• What assumption about how something works today could you challenge or rethink?
• What makes your idea genuinely different from what’s already available?
• How would your solution work in practice, and what would it take to develop or launch it?
• Who is your customer, who would pay, and why would they choose your solution over alternatives?
• Could your idea create new problems, introduce risks, or make existing services less accessible to some people?
• How would you test your idea, measure its success, and build a sustainable business around it?

Challenge 2 — Find Value Where Others Don’t

SUSTAINABILITY, RESOURCE RESILIENCE & THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Context Statement: Every community uses resources, generates waste, and operates systems that can be more efficient. Materials are discarded, energy is lost, equipment sits idle, and useful resources often go underutilized. These challenges can create costs for businesses and residents, but they can also reveal untapped economic opportunities. As Arlington grows, entrepreneurs have an opportunity to rethink how resources are used, recovered, shared, and valued. The strongest solutions will not only reduce waste or improve efficiency; they will demonstrate how addressing a community challenge can create a sustainable business.

Challenge Statement: Identify a resource, material, or existing system in Arlington that is being wasted, underused, or overlooked, and transform it into a valuable business opportunity. Develop an innovative solution that creates measurable economic or environmental value, identify the customers who would pay for it, and demonstrate how your business could operate sustainably without simply shifting the cost or problem somewhere else.

Things to Think About and Incorporate into Your Submission

• What resource, material, or system is being wasted or underused, and how do you know?
• Why does this inefficiency exist, and who currently bears its cost?
• How could you turn this overlooked resource into something people need or are willing to pay for?
• What would it take to collect, recover, repurpose, share, or manage the resource?
• Who benefits financially or environmentally, who pays, and how would you generate revenue?
• Could your solution create unintended environmental, financial, or community consequences?
• How would you measure the value created and demonstrate that your business can grow over time?

Challenge 3 — Build the Arlington of Tomorrow

FUTURE NEEDS, COMMUNITY RESILIENCE & QUALITY OF LIFE

Context Statement: Arlington’s future will be shaped by how the city grows, how people live and work, how industries evolve, and how effectively the community responds to changing needs. Tomorrow’s challenges may look different from today’s, and solutions that work now may not be sufficient in the future. Housing, transportation, access to services, infrastructure, and changing lifestyles all present opportunities for entrepreneurs to rethink how communities function. Preparing for the future means looking beyond immediate problems to anticipate what people will need next and creating practical solutions before those needs become more difficult or costly to address.

Challenge Statement: Imagine Arlington 10 years from now. Identify an emerging need or future challenge that could affect the city’s ability to thrive and develop a business that addresses it before it becomes a bigger problem. Use evidence to support your prediction, explain how your solution would benefit Arlington residents or businesses, and demonstrate how you would test, launch, and sustain your business as community needs evolve.

Things to Think About and Incorporate into Your Submission

• What could change over the next decade that would create a new need or challenge for Arlington?
• What evidence supports your prediction, and who is most likely to be affected?
• Why might existing businesses or public services be unable to meet this need effectively?
• What product, service, or business model could address the challenge before it becomes more difficult to solve?
• Who would use the solution, who would pay for it, and how could the business remain viable as conditions change?
• What assumptions about the future could prove wrong, and how could your business adapt?
• How would you test demand, measure community impact, and determine whether the business is ready to scale?

Challenge 4 — See More, Assume Less

UNDERSTADNING YOUR COMMUNITY THROUGH DATA AND AI

Context Statement: We can now measure community life in ways that were impossible just a few years ago. Connected sensors and devices can collect information from places we could never monitor as easily before – a creek that may flood, an intersection during rush hour, a city bus, or a stretch of road. Artificial intelligence can help analyze that information, identify patterns, and reveal opportunities to improve how a community operates.

Used well, these technologies can make daily life better. But data only captures what it is designed to measure, and AI is only as reliable as the information and assumptions behind it. A solution that misreads its community can waste resources, erode trust, or leave people out. The challenge is to develop a useful, sustainable business solution that considers both what technology can accomplish and where it can fall short.

Challenge Statement: Develop a business idea that uses community data and incorporates artificial intelligence or AI-enabled technology to improve efficiency and quality of life in Arlington. Your solution should be practical, innovative, financially sustainable, and demonstrate a clear community benefit. Consider how your idea would account for what data and AI can get wrong, the people they miss, the situations they misjudge, and build in ways to catch and correct for it.

Students are not required to build or use an AI tool. They should be able to explain how AI would contribute to their proposed solution and support their ideas with research, data, and sound reasoning.

Things to Think About and Incorporate into Your Submission

• What inefficiency or unmet need are you solving, and what data would help you see it clearly?
• What data does your solution rely on, and how do you collect it — including from places or moments that are usually hard to reach?
• What does the artificial intelligence actually do in your solution, and why is it better than the way things work today?
• Who benefits, and who pays? How does your idea work as a real, sustainable business?
• What could your solution misunderstand about the community it serves — and how does your design account for the people or places the data might miss?
• How do you protect privacy, fairness, and trust, and keep the solution accurate as it grows?
• What would it take to launch this, and how would you keep it accurate and trusted over time?

Entry Evaluation

Entries will be evaluated solely on the information presented in the video. However, documentation of your team’s idea development and brainstorming is required. Evaluators will consist of entrepreneurs and community/business leaders from diverse disciplines. Please view the Team Checklist to ensure each component of the challenge is met. Each entry will be evaluated on the following:

• Organization of team within the outlined guidelines
• Innovation in solving the problem
• Collaboration among team members
• Team member participation
• Communication of the value proposition
• Communication of idea and its uses
• The viability of the idea presented
• Steps to effective implementation

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Video Tips