Five Student Projects Funded by 2025-26 CITRIS Tech for Social Good Program
The future is being built at UC Santa Cruz. CITRIS and the Banatao Institute have officially selected five student-led teams for the 2025-26 Tech for Social Good Program, awarding up to $5,000 to projects that tackle everything from wildfire detection to digital literacy in prisons.
With a kickoff this January and a grand showcase set for May 2026, these five teams are turning bold ideas into real-world solutions:
The Big Five: Tech Redefining Society
👁️ AI-Powered Sight: Over 200 million people suffer from retinal disease. While current implants offer limited "grainy" vision, this team is using CLIP AI to help prosthetics "understand" what they see—prioritizing safety hazards and text so users can navigate the world with clarity.
🎵 Beats Behind Bars: The Gateways project uses music production as a hook for digital literacy. Incarcerated students learn file management and project design through creative expression, building a tech-ready "blueprint" for successful reentry into society.
📍 Navigation Without Barriers: Forget standard GPS. This team is building a custom UCSC map tailored to individual physical needs—accounting for steep inclines, uneven pavement, and even sunlight intensity for those prone to migraines.
🌱 Slugiculture: High-tech farm monitoring shouldn't just be for big corporations. This project brings affordable AI surveillance to small-scale farmers, catching pest outbreaks and crop damage before they become catastrophes.
🌬️ AIRWISE: Standard air sensors are expensive and require Wi-Fi. AIRWISE is changing the game with a low-cost, solar-powered mesh network. Using radio waves (LoRa), these sensors track air quality and wildfires in remote rural areas and farms where traditional tech fails.
For students interested in funding opportunities for their research projects, the application for the 2026-27 Tech for Social Good program will open in mid-November 2026.
