Accepting the Challenge of Transforming Education

In this 2018 interview, Nancy Conrad of the Conrad Foundation talks about the Conrad Challenge, student entrepreneurship and the story of astronaut Pete Conrad, the late husband of Nancy Conrad. The interview appears below as published, including its 2018 dates. A section added in 2026 describes how the Conrad Challenge works in the current 2026-2027 cycle.

Turning entrepreneurship, education, and innovation into a Moon shot Update: The registration deadline for the 2018-19 Conrad Challenge has been extended to November 2, 2018. Learn how to register your team of 2-5 students at conradchallenge.org

This is part 2 in a two-part series with Nancy Conrad

Once you’re a teacher, you’re always a teacher… and Nancy Conrad is a teacher. I sat down with Nancy recently to talk about her work with the Conrad Foundation and the 2018-2019 Conrad Challenge, in which high school students learn about entrepreneurship and innovation. “We invite them to design the future, essentially,” Nancy says. “We ask them to solve global and local challenges in aerospace, energy, cybersecurity, and health. We ask them to create technology tools for use in the classroom ─ and kids creating systems for deployment in classrooms is exciting.”

Nancy is also scheduled to participate as an analyst on two different panels during FETC 2019, set to take place in Orlando from January 27th to the 30th, discussing ways to invite students to transform technology use in the classrooms.

“I’ve been working at transforming education my entire life,” Nancy says. “I had the great honor to be married to a fantastic human being who had a rough ride in education,” she shares, referring to her late husband, astronaut Pete Conrad, who was expelled from a prestigious school in the 11th grade because he was a severe dyslexic in the years before it was recognized, much less treated. He ended up repeating 11th grade in a small upstate New York school.

“The headmaster at that small school saw something in him and took him under his wing,” Nancy smiles. “My husband learned to deal with his learning disability and earned a scholarship to Princeton and became an aeronautical engineer. He went on to become a Navy test pilot, an astronaut, and the third person to walk on the Moon.”

“Here’s a guy whose whole story is because an educator took a young person under his wing and gave him a chance,” Nancy says. “And that literally kicked off a Moon shot.”

Registration for the 2018-19 Conrad Challenge opened online on Friday, August 24th at ConradChallenge.org, and registrations must be completed by October 19th, 2018. Teams of 2-5 high school students are invited to get involved, along with an educator advisor who can bring the team together. Judges will be knowledgeable subject-matter experts, as well as industry and market leaders. The Conrad Challenge is for students to create commercially viable products to solve social challenges. “This isn’t teacups and t-shirts,” Nancy warns. “This is the real stuff.”

Editor’s note (2026): The registration and extension deadlines, FETC 2019 and the Kennedy Space Center event described in this article have passed. See the 2026-2027 Conrad Challenge Student Guide for current dates.

As past Conrad Challenges have shown, the process is difficult but very rewarding. Students will write a business plan, a market study, and a visual representation of their proposed idea. They’ll even file for patents, and the students will own their patents and intellectual property.

The proposals are judged, and 250 young people will get invited to the Kennedy Space Center from the April 24th to 27th. “The best way to think about it is that it’s Shark Tank meets the Academy Awards for kids,” Nancy says. “They come together from all over the world. We’ve had students from India, Nigeria, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand ─ you name it ─ and they become an amazing community of young innovators.” And like the chance her husband got from an educator, Nancy and the Conrad Foundation believe that every kid deserves a Moon shot.

The Conrad Challenge is an annual, multi-phase innovation and entrepreneurial competition that encourages young adults to leave their mark on the world. Each year, teams of 2-5 students, ages 13-18, from around the globe create products and/or services that address some of the most pressing global challenges. The registration process for the 2018-19 Challenge is open from August 24 – October 19, 2018. Register your team today at www.conradchallenge.org!

The Conrad Challenge in 2026-2027: how the student innovation competition works

The Conrad Challenge is the competition Nancy Conrad describes above, and the dates and details in the 2018 interview, such as the registration deadline and the FETC conference session, belong to that year and are no longer current. This section is based on the official 2026-2027 Student Guide, a PDF posted in August 2026 at conrad.spacecenter.org, and it replaces the 2018 dates with the ones in force now. Teams considering entry should confirm every date in the guide itself, because the organizers can change them.

Who can enter

According to the guide, students between the ages of 13 and 18 can take part, and each must join a team of two to five students. Teammates may come from different schools, and teams may compete from anywhere in the world. Previous participants may enter again if they meet the age rule and the other requirements. Each team needs a coach, who can be a teacher, parent, subject-matter expert or other qualified mentor over the age of 18. Conrad described the educator advisor as the person who can bring a team together, and the guide keeps that role under the name coach.

The three stages

The 2026-2027 Challenge has three stages.

1. Activation, August 27 to October 29, 2026. Teams register through the Conrad Challenge Award Force portal, choose an innovation and a category, and submit a Lean Canvas, a one-page business outline that answers 12 short questions about the problem, the existing alternatives, the solution, the customers and the way the idea would earn money. The guide says there is no entry fee for this stage, and the deadline is 11:59 p.m. Central Time on October 29, 2026.
2. Innovation, deadline January 7, 2027. Teams write an Innovation Brief, record a 3 to 5 minute Innovation Video, build a website and submit everything online. The guide gives an entry fee of $499 for this stage and says financial aid is available, with decisions based on the quality of the application and the level of demonstrated need. Judges score the submissions and send each team coaching comments, and in February 2027 the Innovators and Finalists are announced.
3. Innovation Summit, April 21 to 24, 2027. Finalist teams go to Space Center Houston and the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where they give power pitches to judges and present at a public Innovation Expo. They compete for scholarships and for the title of Pete Conrad Scholar.

Categories

Teams choose one category that fits their innovation. The guide lists five: Aerospace and Aviation, Cyber-Technology and Security, Energy and Environment, Health and Nutrition, and the Water Challenge. Conrad named aerospace, energy, cybersecurity and health in 2018, and the current list keeps those fields under slightly different names and also includes the Water Challenge. The guide gives examples of past student work, among them a low-cost portable water filtration system, an unmanned surface vehicle that monitors the water quality of lakes and ponds, and a nutrition bar used as a meal supplement for astronauts.

What this means for a school

For a teacher or a school leader deciding whether to sponsor a team, the guide points to several practical decisions. Because the Activation deadline falls on October 29, a school reading this in mid-October has days and not weeks to register a team and file the Lean Canvas, and the Lean Canvas is the only part that costs nothing to try. The Innovation stage asks for a written brief of up to 3,000 words in total, a video and a website, so the work reaches across writing, media production and business planning, and a team benefits from a coach who can draw on colleagues in those subjects.

The edCircuit interview that precedes this one, part one of the series with Nancy Conrad, gives more of the background on the Conrad Foundation. Readers interested in science and engineering programs in school can also use the edCircuit STEM education guide.

As Nancy Conrad explains above, the Challenge grew from the idea that every student deserves a chance like the one an educator gave Pete Conrad. The 2026-2027 guide shows the structure that idea now takes, with a fee-free first step, a paid second stage with financial aid, and a finale in Houston.

Nancy Conrad will be a featured panelist at FETC 2019, January 27-30 in Orlando, Florida. The conference will bring together thousands of educators and technology leaders for an intensive, highly collaborative exploration of new technologies, best practices and pressing issues. Registration is now open.Further Reading

1. Lansing State Journal – Unexpected allies are the key to transforming education
2. eSchool News – Transforming K-12 Education for the Digital Era
3. EdSurge – Is Growth Mindset the Missing Piece in the Equity Discussion?

More on STEM and STEAM Education