xperience academic track

Apply for the Mental Health cohort

9 credits. 3 courses. 1 grand challenge competition.
Applications are now open for the 2026 Xperience academic track, centered around mental health in college students.
food incubator program

Announcing the launch of DeliXious Labs

Welcome to DeliXious Labs, xFoundry@UMD's food incubator in partnership with UMD Dining Services, now open in the IDEA Factory Café.
2025 xperience competition

Topic: School safety

xFoundry Xperience students are designing solutions to create an AI-enabled detection, tracking, and notification system capable of identifying active shooter events in K-12 schools in real-time.
Learn more
Summit recap

2024 Xplore Summit

Look back at the launch of xFoundry@UMD, where attendees voted on the topic for the next grand challenge competition and heard from distinguished guests on the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and impactful solutions.
2026 xperience competition

Topic: Mental Health

The next grand challenge competition launching fall 2025 will task students with designing a solution to monitoring mental health in adolescents.
Learn more
Build your competition team.
Launch a funded venture.
Solve a grand challenge.

At xFoundry@UMD, we are driven by a singular mission: to tackle grand challenges through the power of entrepreneurship and multidisciplinary collaboration. We believe in empowering students to become agents of change, capable of addressing complex problems and making a tangible impact on the world.

xfoundry's flagship program

Xperience

Our 15-month multidisciplinary program is designed for passionate students who want to make positive change.

Xperience is a multidisciplinary guided curriculum with annual targeted competitions designed to address societal challenges by creating sustainable ventures.

Students are taken through the founder's mindset where they'll build upon skills of resilience, adaptability, and risk tolerance, all while solving grand challenges.

Learn more
It is a truly unique space where student design teams, faculty researchers, venture creators, and industry experts will work side-by-side to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
President Darryll J. Pines
Areas of impact

Challenge domains

We tackle global challenges across seven distinct domains through collaboration and entrepreneurship, shaping a brighter future for generations to come.

Learn more