Florida Community Innovation

05/21/2026

We at Florida Community Innovation are so proud to have cleaned up the University of Florida campus as part of the University Challenge, hosted by CitSci.org and Leave No Trace We were one of the top three schools, in terms of gallons of trash picked up: way to go team members Ellie Whitaker, Caroline Nickerson, Amanda, and Kelly Tran!

The Leave No Trash University Challenge (https://citsci.org/projects/-leavenotrash-university-challenge) is a student-centered spinoff of the larger Leave No Trash (https://citsci.org/projects/leave-no-trash) campaign.

It’s a week-long event in April, designed to build a community of people who recognize the 7 Leave No Trace principles and apply them every place people live, work, and play, including college campuses and communities. By picking up trash and logging data about the effort, participants power research about sustainability solutions.

This year, Cleanup Week was April 18-26, 2026, during ( SciStarter).

152 participants from 11 different universities and 3 different countries picked up 403 gallons of trash in 26+ hours. Brevard College, University of Washington Bothell, and the University of Florida teams picked up the most gallons of trash, and Brevard College, University of Washington Bothell, and Colorado State University had the most participants.

Full results are coming out next week; make sure you join the project on CitSci to stay in the loop, and to be the first to know about next year's challenge (https://citsci.org/projects/-leavenotrash-university-challenge). And of course, all are invited to participate in the main Leave No Trash project anytime (https://citsci.org/projects/leave-no-trash).

04/22/2026

Happy Earth Day from your friends at Florida Community Innovation! We think this is a great day to celebrate the Chengyu for Change Zine we championed last year, with support from Changemakerxchange.

Chengyu (成语) for Change is a bilingual (Chinese & English) environmental zine. It launched with a public dialogue initiative launching the day before Art Basel Miami—on December 4, 2025—at the Miami Beach Regional Library of the Miami-Dade Public Library System.

This participatory workshop about environmental futures culiminated in the distribution of 50 limited edition printed zines.

The digital version of the zine is viewable below to amplify the message and stories of impact we created together on December 4.

Chengyu (成语) for Change is a bilingual (Chinese & English) environmental zine. It launched with a public dialogue initiative launching the day before Art Basel Miami—on December 4, 2025—at the …

04/21/2026

FCI is finishing the semester strong! Pictured are some of our students analyzing census data to understand community gaps (where do people need help?), as well as students working on the back-end of the Florida Community Resource Map, a directory under construction for social and community workers to find and manage information about food, shelter, and more.

Join our mission! Visit floridainnovation.org

04/21/2026

Florida Community Innovation was honored to sponsor , SASE - UF’s first hackathon.

Last month, more than 140 hackers took on a 24-hour challenge to build innovative solutions across 14 different tracks.

We’re especially proud of two FCI team members who were part of the action:

💙Nikhil Sangamkar, Technical Product Manager at FCI, competed as a hacker and took home 2 wins.
💙Tiffany Chen, Backend Developer Intern, served on the operations committee that brought the whole event to life. Check out a quote from Tiffany, below!
- - -
“Being part of UF SASE’s first ever hackathon, SASEHacks, on the Operations Committee this past month was something really special.

Led by my amazing committee head, our committee handled everything from coordinating food vendors to logistics to venue layout planning, something we had been working on since October of last year. I also worked on the opening and closing slides, which gave me such a cool perspective seeing how all the hard work everyone put in carried through from the very start of the event to the very end.

The night before, we were still up late putting the finishing touches on everything. It was one of those moments where you could just feel how much everyone cared about making it great.

And it paid off. Hearing from hackers afterward that they thought the event was well-organized, that they liked the food, that they liked the vibes meant a lot to us. Especially knowing it was our first time planning a hackathon.

Really proud of the SASEHacks team and grateful I got to be part of it.”

04/21/2026

Florida Community Innovation loved being part of SciStarter’s this month with fathomverse 🌊

Last week, we were joined by Lilli Wakinekona Carlsen, Engagement Coordinator for FathomNet, at our weekly meeting. She shared how FathomVerse is helping researchers scale ocean discovery by combining AI with human input from people around the world.

If you haven’t tried it yet, FathomVerse is a free mobile game where you identify and classify marine life from real underwater images. Every action helps train AI models used by scientists to better understand ocean ecosystems. Join today: scistarter.org/fathomverse

We connected through SciStarter, a global hub that makes it easy for anyone to contribute to real research. During Citizen Science Month, SciStarter’s initiative highlights how small actions can drive meaningful scientific progress.

At Florida Community Innovation (FCI), we build civic tech and research experiences with communities, not just for them. Our weekly sessions create space for students and volunteers of all ages to work directly with real projects and researchers. Learn more: floridainnovation.org

We meet every Wednesday at 6 PM ET with students from universities across the country and a growing network of volunteers to explore projects, hear from guest speakers, and contribute together.

Citizen Science Month isn’t over yet. You can still log your own and be part of a global effort showing how small contributions add up to real impact: citizensciencemonth.org

Dive in and be part of the research 🌊

04/10/2026

Our dinner yesterday was so data-driven! Thank you to Data Science for Sustainable Development for hosting us.

We had a blast discussing how data — information — can be analyzed by ANYONE for the public good.

The bottom line: research is ultimately all about creating new knowledge and the search for truth. The insights yielded by data can be the foundation for leaders to make good decisions.

We do research and try to understand data because we care about each other, and because we are curious about the world around us.

Want to begin your data for good journey? Visit floridainnovation.org to get involved!

04/06/2026

2025 was a great year for FCI! What will the rest of 2026 bring?

Read about what we did last year: https://floridainnovation.org/2025/12/18/fci-2025-year-in-review/?amp=1

03/30/2026

Florida Community Innovation, a civic tech nonprofit, and Data Science for Sustainable Development, a University of Florida student group, are coming together to host a data-driven dinner, where anyone can apply to present a five minute talk about why data can be a force for good.

All are welcome!

Please RSVP for the dinner, and then optionally apply to present a lighting talk (submission deadline for talks is accepted on a rolling basis until April 5th).

🕑 April 9th, 6-8pm
📌 Reitz Union Room 2340

RSVP and/or apply to give a lightning talk: bit.ly/datadrivendin

03/12/2026

FCI student fellow Chloe Bai analyzed citizen-collected marine debris data from across Florida and suggests community solutions in a new blog post. Check it out on floridainnovation.org (clickable link in our stories)

12/04/2025

FCI had a wonderful time last night meeting with people from Gainesville Rotary Club, including their Rotaract Club of Gainesville group. Rotary is an international community service organization. We loved how welcoming they were to our young civic technologists and are excited for the relationship to come! Special thanks to Green Cove Springs Rotary Public Image Chair Anna FL and FCI's own Ellie Whitaker for helping organize the dinner.