We build things to help people#

The Difference Engine at Arizona State University is a venture studio that creates practical solutions to inequality by leveraging student innovation, faculty expertise, and community leadership. We believe that communities experiencing inequality are best positioned to solve their own challenges—they just need the right support, tools, and facilitation to launch their ideas and transform the institutions that affect their lives. As a university-wide initiative housed in ASU's Office of University Affairs, we draw expertise from across ASU's academic landscape, from law and liberal arts to engineering and business.

Our Impact#

In just three years, we've grown to engage over 80 Difference Engineers (students, faculty, and staff) who have helped several communities nationwide develop practical solutions to inequality while strengthening civic participation and public trust. Our flagship initiatives include the:

• Women's Power & Influence Index: The country's most comprehensive measure of workplace fairness, evaluating major companies on gender equity metrics.
• Creative Justice Lab: A collaborative initiative where students and community members design innovative solutions to challenges like food insecurity.
• Distinguished Innovation Fellows: An application-based program bringing experienced leaders together with ASU faculty to tackle complex social problems through entrepreneurial approaches.
• DifferenceCorps (this program!): A light-touch cohort-based experience connecting community entrepreneurs working to support their communities

What's a Venture Studio?#

As a venture studio The Difference Engine takes a community entrepreneur from an idea to a prototype or a pitch, and that is the stage where the Difference Engine works. It does this through three programs that run on different timelines and offer different levels of support:

• The Creative Justice Lab over three days;
• DifferenceCorps over about seven months; and
• The Distinguished Innovation Fellows over roughly nine.

Downstream, an incubator carries a prototype or MVP to its first set of customers, and an accelerator grows that company from its first customers to profitability and then to scale or sale. The Difference Engine sits at the front of that pipeline as a community venture studio for good.