The Lemelson-MIT Program announces the 2024-2025 InvenTeams today. The eight teams of high school students, teachers, and mentors from across the country will each receive $7,500 in grant funding and year-long support to build a technological invention to solve a problem of their own choosing. The students’ inventions are inspired by real-world problems they identified in their local communities.
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Meet the 2024–2025 InvenTeams
The InvenTeams were selected by a respected panel consisting of university professors, inventors, entrepreneurs, industry professionals, and college students. Some panel members were former InvenTeam members now working in industry. The InvenTeams are focusing on problems facing their local communities, with a goal that their inventions will have a positive impact on beneficiaries and, ultimately, improve the lives of others beyond their communities.
This year’s teams are:
- Battle Creek Area Mathematics and Science Center (Battle Creek, Mich.)
- Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (Cambridge, Mass.)
- Colegio Rosa-Bell (Guaynabo, P.R.)
- Edison High School (Edison, N.J.)
- Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science (Worcester, Mass.)
- Nitro High School (Nitro, W. Va.)
- Southcrest Christian School (Lubbock, Texas)
- Ygnacio Valley High School (Concord, Calif.)
The 2024–2025 InvenTeams are comprised of students, teachers and community mentors who pursue year-long invention projects involving creative thinking, problem-solving, and hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The InvenTeams’ prototype inventions will be showcased at a technical review within their home communities in February, 2025, and then again as a final prototype at EurekaFest® — an invention celebration taking place June 9-11, 2025, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“The InvenTeams are focusing on solving problems that impact their local communities,” says Leigh Estabrooks, Lemelson-MIT’s Invention Education Officer. “Teams are focusing their technological solutions — their inventions — on health and wellbeing, environmental issues, and safety concerns. These high school students are not just problem-solvers of tomorrow, they are problem solvers today helping to make our world healthier, greener, and safer.”
Celebrating a Year of Firsts for the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams Grants Initiative
This year marks an exciting milestone for the Lemelson-MIT Program and the InvenTeams grants initiative as it celebrate a series of firsts in the annual high school invention grant program. For the first time a team from their home city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, will participate, representing the Cambridge community’s innovative spirit on a national stage. Additionally, the program welcomes the first team from Puerto Rico highlighting the expanding reach of the InvenTeams grants initiative. The pioneering teams exemplify the diversity and creativity that fuel invention.
The InvenTeams grants initiative, now in its 21st year, has enabled 18 teams of high school students to be awarded U.S. patents for their projects. Intellectual property education is combined with our invention education offerings as part of the Lemelson-MIT Program’s deliberate efforts to remedy historic inequities among those who develop inventions, protect their intellectual property, and commercialize their creations. The ongoing efforts empower students from all backgrounds, equipping them with invaluable problem-solving skills that will serve them well throughout their academic journeys, professional pursuits, and personal lives. The program has worked with over 4,000 students across 304 different InvenTeams nationwide and has included:
- Partnering with intellectual property (IP) law firms to provide pro bono legal support
- Collaborating with industry-leading companies that provide technical guidance and mentoring
- Providing professional development for teachers on invention education and IP
- Assisting teams with identifying resources within their communities’ innovation ecosystems to support ongoing invention efforts
- Publishing case studies and research to inform the work of invention educators and policy makers to build support for engaging students in efforts to invent solutions to real-world problems thus fueling the innovation economy in the U.S.
ABOUT THE LEMELSON-MIT PROGRAM
The Lemelson-MIT Program is a national leader in efforts to prepare the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs. Our work focuses on the expansion of opportunities for people to learn ways inventors find and solve problems that matter to improve lives. Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion aims to remedy historic inequities among those who develop inventions, protect their intellectual property, and commercialize their creations.
Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific inventors, and his wife Dorothy founded the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. It is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and administered by the School of Engineering at MIT, an institution with a strong ongoing commitment to creating meaningful opportunities for K-14 STEM education. For more information, visit lemelson.mit.edu.
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Contacts
For More Information:
Leigh Estabrooks
Lemelson-MIT Program
(617) 452-2147
leighe@mit.edu
lemelson.mit.edu/inventeams
