The Empower Spark Tank Challenge is an opportunity for you to work with other ASU IT professionals to create an innovative solution for a pressing, real-world challenge currently impacting the ASU community that could benefit from an AI tech-driven approach.

Spark Tank 2025 will focus on how ASU is committed to positioning itself as a global leader in AI innovation by leveraging cutting-edge technology to drive transformative change. Our approach focuses on five key areas: 

• Enhancing student and learner outcomes - Outline an opportunity to personalize, scale and improve student support services (e.g., advising, career readiness, course design, proactive issue resolution) via AI that preserves a human-centered, human-partnered approach.
• Creating space for active innovation - Create an AI-powered strategy through which teams could reduce their operational load, expanding the space, time and resources they have to problem-solve, experiment and engage in creative work.
• Advancing pathways for research and discovery - Describe a plan for leveraging AI to streamline the research process (e.g., data classification, content analysis, knowledge discovery, prioritization of insights) to enable more efficient, abundant breakthroughs.
• Redefining the future of work - Offer a method to automate repetitive and routine tasks (e.g., ticket tagging, documentation, meeting annotation, coding support) to eliminate drudgery and free up team members for more meaningful tasks.
• Positioning ASU as a global leader for advancing AI innovations-Provide a strategy for scaling and standardizing AI across ASU, from governance frameworks and guidelines to enterprise adoption, to showcase cohesive, consistent leadership in advancing AI innovation.

Thank you to everyone who provided a suggestion for this year's challenge. We are very excited to see what solutions you create together!