Now Accepting Fall 2025 Innovators
INI Innovators
Work with the brightest minds at Carnegie Mellon! As an INI Innovator, you become part of the INI community.
A highlight of this program is working with a team of INI students to complete an open-source project over the course of a semester. This Practicum project is a great way to engage with the next generation of engineers and help your company, startup, nonprofit or government agency pilot a new idea or develop a proof of concept.
Your organization will also participate in the INI Innovators Speakers Series, receive unlimited resume books, feature in our brand communications and more — giving you many opportunities to engage with our interdisciplinary network.
About Practicum
3-6 Students per Team
Projects are matched according to student skill sets and interests. INI students have expertise in information networking, security and mobile and IoT engineering.
14 Weeks or 1400+ Hours of Work
Work begins and is completed during CMU's fall semester, which is typically 14 weeks. For example, a team of 5 students will log 1400 hours of work throughout the semester.
Example Practicum Projects Include:
- Working to verify the reliability of the open-source Rust standard library for Amazon Web Services
- Improving the security of a programmable robot for Aptiv
- Creating a customized dashboard to optimize energy usage for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory
- Developing mobile peer-to-peer sharing capabilities using blockchain for T-Mobile
INI Innovator Benefits
These benefits are available to all INI Innovators for one academic year:
- One Practicum project given fast-track priority
- Opportunity for a second Practicum project at a 20% reduced fee
- Opportunity to visit and present on campus to CMU students and the CMU community at the INI Innovators Speakers Series
- Unlimited resume books
- Featured story about your organization on the INI website and in INI Insiders, the alumni email newsletter reaching 3K+ leaders in industry, government and academia across the world
- Organization logo listed on the INI website and in the INI alumni print magazine
- Social media mentions of your organization on the INI’s LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook accounts
Investment
Industry Rate:
One year commitment: $40,000
Two-year commitment: $80,000
Small Business Rate:
One year commitment: $15,000
Two-year commitment: $30,000
Non-Profit Large (50+ employees and/or budget of $1M) Rate:
One year commitment: $10,000
Two-year commitment: $20,000
Non-Profit Small (less than 50 employees and/or less than 1M budget) Rate:
One year commitment: $5,000
Two-year commitment: $10,000
CyLab Partner Rate:
One year commitment: $36,000
Two-year commitment: $72,000
Start-Up Rate:
One year commitment: $5,000
Two-year commitment: $10,000
Government Rate:
One year commitment: $0
Two-year commitment: $0