Social Impact BuildFest
A national, student-centered weekend for building immersive projects around real community needs.
Social Impact BuildFest is a collaborative, weekend-long design and prototyping experience where students from across disciplines use XR, storytelling, design, and emerging technology to respond to social issues in their communities.
IXA is gathering interest from members who may want to host, support, mentor, or sponsor a Social Impact BuildFest during the 2026–2027 school year.
Members selected to move forward will receive access to the IXA BuildFest Playbook and personalized support from the IXA BuildFest team to help plan and facilitate their local event. The model is built around tools, training, and support across the design, build, and presentation phases.
What Is BuildFest?
BuildFest is designed as an accessible alternative to a traditional hackathon. Rather than centering technical competition, it emphasizes collaboration, mentorship, interdisciplinary teams, and social impact.
Over the course of a weekend, students move through three phases:
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Design: Identify a social issue, explore community needs, and shape an idea
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Build: Prototype an immersive or interactive experience with support from technical mentors
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Present: Share the project, its intended impact, and future potential
Who Should Participate?
This opportunity is for IXA members interested in hosting, supporting, mentoring, or partnering on a BuildFest during the 2026–2027 school year.
You might be a fit if you are:
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A university program, lab, or center working in XR, games, immersive media, design, storytelling, or emerging technology
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A faculty member or staff lead looking to create a student-facing social impact event
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An industry or nonprofit partner interested in mentoring students or supporting a local BuildFest
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An IXA member who wants to help scale meaningful XR education nationally
What makes BuildFest Different?
BuildFest is intentionally designed to welcome students who may not see themselves as “hackathon people.” The model brings together students from communication, design, architecture, social work, nursing, literature, performance, finance, international relations, computer science, engineering, and more.
The emphasis is on:
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Interdisciplinary teams: Students bring different skills, lived experiences, and ways of thinking
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Social impact first: Projects begin with real community needs, not technology for technology’s sake
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Mentorship throughout: Students receive support from social impact mentors, technical mentors, faculty, staff, and community partners
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Accessible prototyping: The format supports students with a wide range of technical experience, including first-time builders
Why Bring BuildFest to your Campus?
IXA is helping expand Social Impact BuildFest into a national member offering for universities, labs, and programs that want to create meaningful XR opportunities for students.
Originally launched by the Texas Immersive Institute at UT Austin, BuildFest has grown into a model for helping students build agency, confidence, and creative capacity through socially engaged immersive media. In 2026, the model expanded beyond UT Austin to include partners at the University of Maryland and CU Boulder, demonstrating that BuildFest can adapt to different campus sizes, facilities, student populations, and local community priorities.
Participating locations will receive access to the IXA BuildFest Playbook, a practical guide that includes the event structure, facilitation model, student experience recommendations, mentorship approach, communication templates, and lessons learned from prior BuildFests.
For the 2026–2027 school year, new locations joining the BuildFest program will also receive personalized facilitation support from the IXA BuildFest team to help adapt the model to their campus, community, student population, and available resources.
For IXA members, BuildFest offers a shared framework while leaving room for each campus to shape the theme, partners, technology platform, and student experience around local needs.
