TechBuffalo's Tech Design Challenge pairs interns with real community problems, real deadlines, and the tools to ship something that works.
Buffalo interns aren’t just grabbing coffee this summer.
Across two 48-hour hackathons, over 240 college interns went to work on problems that actually matter to Buffalo.
That is the Tech Design Challenge, the centerpiece of TechBuffalo's PowerUpTech summer internship experience. Teams of interns from 70 companies, spanning every discipline come together to build, problem solve, and compete.
This year, teams tackled real-world challenges posed by local nonprofits: United Way of Buffalo & Erie County, Girl Scouts of WNY, 43North Foundation, Collaborative Center for Social Innovation, and Mission Ignite.
These aren’t hypothetical challenges. Issues raised included how to better connect startups to established businesses, digitizing volunteer databases across Western New York scout troops, record keeping for folks without phones or laptops, and more.
Teams had access to Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft CoPilot, including AI for Social Good workshops and resources. Several experts in UI/UX, computer science, marketing, and business served as coaches for teams to lean on as well.
At the end, teams pitch their solutions to judges from the local innovation economy and winners were celebrated.
The outcome is two-fold. Buffalo gets a more AI-ready workforce, one focused not on theory but on shipping real solutions. And, ideally, those interns leave more anchored to the city, because they're passionate about the issues they're tackling and the organizations they're working alongside. Hand a student a problem that matters to a place, and the place starts to matter to them.
“This is about making new connections today but long term this is about talent discovering that Buffalo is where they can build a great career,” said TechBuffalo President & CEO Jeffrey Botteron.
