EPICS in IEEE Expands in 2025: 40 New Projects, New Leadership, and AI
EPICS in IEEE Expands in 2025: 40 New Projects, New Leadership, and AI
EPICS in IEEE has approved 40 new service-learning project proposals for funding, according to an announcement published in January 2026. The program, which funds university-led engineering projects that solve real problems for communities, is growing alongside a new leadership team and a significant shift: formal support for artificial intelligence projects.
New Leadership and What It Means
Dr. Pedro Wightman became EPICS in IEEE Chair in 2025, according to a January 2025 blog post. His arrival came during a period the organization described as growth and consolidation — a shift now backed by the batch of 40 newly funded projects announced roughly a year later.
The basic model is straightforward: university students collaborate with professional engineers and community organizations to build solutions to real-world problems. Students gain hands-on experience and professional exposure. Communities get access to engineering talent and resources they might not otherwise afford. Service-learning — the idea of learning by doing real work that helps others — isn't new, but embedding it within a professional engineering society like IEEE gives it structure and resources that purely academic programs often lack.
The 40 New Projects
The January 2026 announcement didn't break down the 40 approved projects by region, technology type, or partner organization — details that would help you understand the program's scope. What is clear is that each project cleared a formal proposal and review process to receive funding and official backing.
For the student teams involved, the money matters in concrete ways. Funding pays for hardware and software. It allows teams to engage with communities at meaningful scale. And crucially, it covers the cost of traveling to conferences to present their work. That last part is important: without that support, students from less wealthy institutions or countries often can't afford to attend conferences, which limits their professional visibility. The program's Student Travel Grant reimburses up to $1,000 per student to attend conferences where their team is presenting EPICS-funded work. For many students, that removes a significant barrier to building a professional network and portfolio.
A Significant New Direction: AI Projects
EPICS in IEEE now formally supports artificial intelligence projects, according to resource documentation published in April 2026. The program hasn't detailed exactly how AI projects are evaluated or what rules apply to them — but the shift is real and worth thinking about.
Historically, EPICS projects have focused on infrastructure, accessibility, environmental monitoring, and community health — work where an engineering solution clearly solves a problem, and a student team can build, test, and hand off a working product in a single academic year. AI projects work differently. They raise new questions: Where does training data come from, and who controls it. How does the community maintain the system after the students graduate. What happens if the AI makes a wrong decision or produces a biased result. What if community partners don't have the technical expertise to understand what they're receiving. These aren't reasons to avoid AI projects, but they require careful planning in ways a water-quality sensor doesn't.
The real test will be whether the program's annual reporting tracks how AI projects actually perform. Do they complete and hand off at the same rate as other projects. Are the outcomes sustainable. That longitudinal data will matter more than the decision to include AI in the first place.
How the Program Supports and Recognizes Participants
Beyond funding, EPICS in IEEE maintains an Excellent EPICS in IEEE Contributor Awards program that recognizes standout team members. Combined with travel grants and the chance to present at conferences, this creates a fairly complete ecosystem: fund the work, help students travel to talk about it, then recognize the people who do it well. For students early in their careers, that kind of formal recognition carries real weight.
The program also held an informational webinar in April 2024 to help institutions and students understand how to participate — a signal that expanding access and removing barriers to entry remains a priority.
The Bigger Picture
The programs that last the longest are the ones that solve two problems at once. EPICS in IEEE is genuinely trying to do that: it helps students develop as engineers while producing something useful for communities that otherwise lack access to professional technical capacity. I've seen this pattern work before, in the early days of open-source software, where contributions to shared code served both as career building for developers and as public infrastructure for everyone else. The incentives lined up in a way that made the system durable.
Whether that same alignment holds in a service-learning context, across different countries and regions, and with increasingly complex technology like AI, is the question the program's annual reports will answer over the next few years. The 2025 report, read alongside the project announcements, will show where things actually stand — not just in ambition, but in execution.
If you're a student considering service-learning, an educator advising students on opportunities, or a community organization exploring a partnership with an engineering school, the program's public resources are a good starting point for understanding what's available.
