About EPICS

The Engineering Projects in Community Service program, known as EPICS, is a national award-winning social entrepreneurship program. Teams design, build and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for charities, schools and other not-for-profit organizations. Our students aren’t waiting to graduate to make a difference—they are tackling real-world problems today.

EPICS courses use an innovative technology-based approach to very old problems—access to clean drinking water, providing nutritious food in remote villages. We do not take an off-the-shelf solution; we are looking for big-picture, breakthrough thinking. The project teams address needs in the Phoenix metropolitan area and around the world in places like Vietnam, South Africa and India.

Competitions are used as real-world vehicle to provide students with experience focusing their ideas, meeting deadlines, writing a business plan and presenting their ideas to the world. The results? EPICS teams are attracting the funding to make their ideas a reality.

Founded at Purdue in 1995, EPICS provides many benefits to students and communities, local or global. In fall 2009, ASU joined the consortium of 20 universities in the nationwide EPICS program. That year, 35 students enrolled in the first series of EPICS courses. The curriculum and enrollment have grown from one EPICS class, 35 students, and 8 Epics Teams in 2009 to 14 classes, 300 students, and EPICS teams winning national awards, making it the largest social entrepreneurship program at ASU.

The EPICS at ASU Program is based in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and EPICS courses are open to all undergraduates including Engineering, Business, Design, and Education. Participating students represent a variety of disciplines within ASU. A common theme through all projects is that of sustainability—finding environmentally friendly solutions to community problems.

There are several ways to get involved with EPICS.