Sprints
Learn about sprints and how we tackle national challenges.
Sprints are 12-week product development cycles that bring together tech teams and collaborators to build public-facing digital products using open data.
2024 Sprints
2024
TOP’s 2024 sprints include challenges from new and ongoing partners, as well as the first set of TOP sprints dedicated to Indigenous communities.
We are currently seeking participants for these sprints in many roles. See detailed descriptions of the problem statements below, and if you are interested in participating, please email the TOP team to express interest.
Building Stronger Pathways to Grants and Funding for Indigenous Communities
Challenge:
Develop community and data driven solutions that empower Indigenous communities to navigate a complex grant and funding landscape and increase their capabilities to successfully secure funding.
Agency
Natives Count Coalition, National Urban Indian Family Coalition
Target Audience
Tribal stakeholders, tribal leaders, Native Hawaiian stakeholders, researchers, and others responsible for preparing grant applications or who utilize the data in those applications for other purposes, including internal use, research reports, policy and legislative efforts, and public education.
Empowering Community-Led Wellbeing Measurement
Challenge:
Local policymakers need high-quality data to make informed policy decisions, but existing measures of policy success at the national level often fail to measure what matters most for communities. Many local governments and communities lack the resources and capabilities to develop an actionable wellbeing data solution that can be adapted to their context.
Agency
Harvard Business School, U.S. Department of Commerce, National League of Cities
Target Audience
Local government leaders and community members, with a particular focus on officials from under-resourced cities, historically disadvantaged communities, and places that could not otherwise develop meaningful measures of individual and family wellbeing.
Enhancing Access to Federal Science and Technology Research & Development Funding
Challenge:
Enhance research & development (R&D) capacity at organizations across the innovation ecosystem by broadening access to federal science & technology (S&T) funding opportunities.
Agency
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health
Target Audience
Institutions of higher education (both public and private) with an emphasis on Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and other entities within the nation’s innovation ecosystem where levels of federal funding for S&T research and development have historically been low.
Expanding Opportunities for Native Homeownership and Housing Stability
Challenge:
Create tools that will improve and enhance access to homeownership and housing stability for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations and Indigenous communities, particularly on reservations and/or other tribal areas.
Agency
U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Target Audience
American Indian and Alaska Native individuals, families, and elders that wish to accumulate wealth through homeownership; stakeholders involved in housing, including Tribes, Tribally Designated Housing Entities, Native and Tribal Nonprofits, banks and funding organizations, and Native CDFIs.
Strengthening the STEM Educator Workforce
Challenge:
Develop tools that enable local education agencies, states, and school districts to expand and strengthen their STEM teacher workforce.
Agency
U.S. Department of Education
Target Audience
States, school districts, schools, teachers, and teacher preparation programs.