C3 Innovation design labs and a faculty fellowship program are underway for the fall 2025 semester.  

The C3 Innovation initiative is a program intended to connect UCCS affiliates with the rest of the Colorado Springs community by cultivating innovation related opportunities and spaces.   

On Feb. 4, a reception was held in the library to announce the launch of the initiative and their plans for the future. 

Seth Porter, the dean of the library and senior executive director of innovation and technology, and Benjamin Kwitek, the director of the Innovation Program, began working on the C3 initiative in 2022, aiming to connect different disciplines across campus. C3 stands for creativity, community and curiosity, and encourages strategic foresight in problem solving. 

Porter said the program will aim to connect with students through C3 design labs. The design labs will be open to all UCCS students and will house cohort trainings that will teach students how to design, code and launch apps into the iOS App Store using Swift coding language.  

The C3 Innovation initiative is launching a C3 fellowship for UCCS faculty. The fellowship will support and train faculty members in innovation and creativity by providing workshops and opportunities to connect with local businesses and organizations.  

Porter said developing a C3 Innovation fellowship for students is a top priority for the team. A student fellowship would provide students with more research, internship and employment opportunities.  

Theo Edmonds, a research associate professor at CU Denver, is a trained Culture Futurist who works with C3. Culture futurists analyze the past and present to recognize trends, allowing researchers to employ strategic foresight and theorize solutions to potential future problems, which Porter said is what C3 endorses. 

Edmonds will lead workshops and trainings meant to teach organizations how to be more innovative and increase creativity in the workforce. 

Porter emphasizes that C3 programs are not limited to innovation majors due to the universal application of the mindset they provide. “From my perspective, innovation and creativity really happen at the borderlands, where disciplines and ideas kind of collide, so we don’t want to limit it to any specific discipline,” he said. 

Students can learn more about C3 programs and opportunities on their website. 

Photo by John Adams on Unsplash.