Expo 2025
Rooted in Place
Powered by People
Check out the project briefs to get a glimpse of their Extreme Journey and learn about what they’ve co-designed with their partner & community.
Our Class in 2025
22 students
7 multidisciplinary student teams
6 social impact organizations
costa rica
Guiding Explorations in 2025
What does it really take to implement lasting solutions with and for communities?
Extreme 2025 explores not just how to imagine solutions, but how to walk the long road toward implementation—ethically, collaboratively, and with deep accountability.
Designing a good idea is only the beginning—the real work begins when you commit to walking the long road toward implementation. This means grappling with complexity, building trust across cultural and geographic boundaries, and staying accountable not just to the idea, but to the people it’s meant to serve. Implementation in Extreme is not a final deliverable; it’s a sustained practice of showing up—with humility, imagination, and deep care. It requires students to think beyond the prototype, to center relationships always, and to measure success by what endures long after they’ve left.
That’s the heart of Extreme: not just designing for impact, but learning what it takes to live it.
What does it look like to co-design in solidarity, not charity?
We are curious about what emerges when students practice cultural humility, deep listening, and
shared power with global partners.
One of the most important shifts we ask of students in Extreme is to reimagine their role—not as problem solvers arriving with answers from Stanford, but as committed changemakers entering into relationships rooted in mutual respect and shared purpose. We challenge students to practice humility, to listen before acting, and to recognize the expertise and lived experience within the communities they engage. Co-design in solidarity means acknowledging power dynamics, slowing down enough to build trust, and resisting the urge to "help" in ways that center themselves. It’s about creating space for collaboration that is reciprocal, not extractive. In Extreme, we witness students begin to understand that solidarity is not a moment of empathy—it’s a sustained commitment to equity, learning, and shared ownership of the design process in beloved community.
How might we honor community knowledge while contributing new innovations—through imagination, passion, and a belief in what’s possible?
Extreme challenges students to learn from lived experience and ancestral knowledge while also iterating and offering new interventions with care.
In Extreme, we challenge students to step into design as a space of possibility—where ancestral wisdom and lived experience are not just respected, but centered. We ask them to contribute with courage and care, using their imagination to envision new pathways forward and their passion to pursue those possibilities with integrity. When community knowledge and creative insight overlap in true collaboration, the possibilities for meaningful, lasting change expand far beyond what either could achieve alone.
Extreme 2025 Projects
sueños de cimarrones- a women-led initiative to increase collective agency & shared wealth
Team AMICREO: Anastasha, Kelsey & Mikaela
Partner: Asociación de Mujeres (AMICREO)
Community: Cimarrones, Limon
A program for current and aspiring business owners in Cimarrones to put their AMICREO-supported trainings into practice through a community-led business strategy that follows the annual tourism cycle. Through off-season product fairs that build connections with local collaborators, such as tour operators, and on-season, immersive tourist experiences, the women of AMICREO can share their handicrafts, highlight their personal stories and Cimarrones history, and bring visitors and community members together for a moment of connection, reflection, and refreshment.
HOMESTAYS DE PARISMINA - Connecting eco-sensitive initiatives with local women owned businesses
Team ASTOP: Andrea, Sofia & Zarrin
Partner: Asociación Salvemos Las Tortugas de Parismina (ASTOP)
Community: Barra de Parismina, Limon
Parismina, Costa Rica, sees thousands of nesting turtles every year. Unfortunately, these turtles and their eggs are endangered by poachers. While conservation volunteers come to ASTOP to patrol the beaches and protect a hatchery, 40 homestay moms quietly power the mission by feeding, housing, and sharing their lives with volunteers. A new website page and self-updating activity catalog will create additional economic opportunities for the homestay women of Parismina. Additionally, a celebratory starter pack ensures the women's value in saving turtles won't go unnoticed, because the turtle mission doesn’t start on the beach... it starts at home!
Tacita - TU AMIGA CORDIAL E INTELIGENTE TE AYUDA
Team Bean Voyage: Evans, Shreya & Valeria
Partner: Bean Voyage
Community: Tarrazu
Bean Voyage is a nonprofit supporting smallholder women coffee farmers in Costa Rica. While many farmers are interested in exporting their coffee, to earn higher prices in export markets and share their unique stories through their coffee, they face gendered and systemic barriers to doing so. Our solution? Tacita -an automated assistant that provides simple, accurate, and relevant information on the exportation process. Tacita fits into farmers’ busy lives, helps them assess risks and benefits, and connects them to available exportation resources.
Helping small plot coffee farmers expand their income and build multi-generational family businesses
Team Con Gusto: Katherine, Maggie & Rahim
Partner: Multi-generational Tico family coffee farms
Community: Los Santos Region
Telementoría Con Gusto empowers young coffee farmers in Costa Rica’s Los Santos region to lead the future of farm-based tourism. Through a 9-session online peer-mentoring program using accessible digital tools, youth build skills in storytelling, hospitality, and coffee knowledge. By fostering community, confidence, and innovation, the initiative strengthens intergenerational collaboration and creates new livelihood paths, preserving the region’s rich coffee heritage for generations to come.
Connecting Women Divers to EcoTourism Opportunities supporting Coral Restoration
Team CRCR: Isha, Izabella & Robbie
Partner: Costa Rica Coral Restoration
Community: Uvita, Puntarenas
Introducing Coral Tico Club! In Phase 1, local Uvitan women are trained and certified as paid coral restoration tour guides for Costa Rica Coral Restoration. In Phase 2, these women volunteer to lead Coral Tico Club—a hands-on science and reef care program for local teens. By centering local leadership, the initiative strengthens reef health while building pride, opportunity, and environmental stewardship within the Uvitan community—especially among women and the next generation.
Indigenous-women of the Kekoldi Bribri apprenticeships
Team El Puente: Ananya, Helen & Rose
Partner: El Puente
Community: Puerto Viejo, Limon
Our team worked alongside BriBri women in Costa Rica to co-create solutions that support their economic independence while preserving their cultural heritage. While in Costa Rica, we uncovered the power of intergenerational mentorship, collective resilience, and culturally grounded entrepreneurship. Our final concept is Women Who Build, a community-based apprenticeship program that connects women to skills, mentorship, and opportunity, all rooted in BriBri values.
Playas para todos - Disability inclusive beaches for all
Team La Red: Allie, Amelie, Daniel & Sara
Partner: Red Costarricense de Turismo Accesible (La Red)
Community: Escazu, San José, Nationwide
We are Team La Red, and we set out to make Costa Rica’s beaches more accessible for wheelchair users. We built a bilingual online directory on WordPress that shares up-to-date, verified information about accessibility features like bathrooms, pathways, and amphibious chairs. We also created Valentina, a friendly automated travel assistant that works through WhatsApp with both voice and text—making it easier for users to discover accessible beaches and plan their visits with confidence.
Extreme Expo 2025 Livestream (Spanish language)
Watch the full recording of the live stream to experience
our evening of celebration, joy and dancing.
Expo is the culminating event for showcasing our student's’ work towards collective impact. This livestream was especially created for our partners across
Costa Rica and our ecosystem of Coaches, and the extended Extreme Community.
Thank You!
Thank you to our incredible partners, coaches, alumni, friends, families, & the inspiring communities we work with.
