FAQ

We invite all UW community members to work with us. Whether you just need help with your project, are interested in collaborating with us, or are a UW student looking for internship opportunities, check out various ways you can get involved.

No. We are here to help whenever you need it, no application necessary. Just contact us when you have a question or would like to schedule a consultation with us.

SIL primarily supports any UW student-led projects that are focused on solving problems facing the UW community. We provide tools for UW data access and rapid solution prototyping. We also offer consultation to help you think through your project and process.

As part of UW-IT, our expertise is in technological solutions. However, we are happy to consult with you about any innovation project you are working on to see if there is any way that we can help. If not, we’ll try to point you to someone at UW who can.

Innovation is about taking risks, which means that innovation work is likely to fail and forces us to redefine “success.”

Success for innovation projects is not about launching a product, but about whether you learned something. Sometimes we end up with validation that we are headed in a promising direction. Sometimes we just end up with a nice portfolio piece and a wealth of professional experience. In the worst case scenario, we learn what doesn’t work and what not to try again, which is still profoundly valuable.

Yes! If you are interested in sharing your ideas with UW-IT, we have pathways for getting your ideas in front of UW Service teams for consideration. While this doesn’t guarantee that they will necessarily use your idea or solution (they might), your project will be in their minds as they consider future directions.

Sustainability is an important consideration with any project you begin, especially if you create a product that end-users rely on.

Too often students release products into the UW environment only to stop supporting it once they graduate. This is why we offer consultation and project pathways to help you think about what your end goal is for your project and consider how it will be supported in the future.

Not likely. There is a very high bar for allowing projects and services to integrate UW SSO into their products, which requires registration of the service with the UW and justification. Just keep this in mind as you think about how you will authenticate your users.

Yes! While we don’t currently host a service for finding UW projects or collaborators, we do know that there are many enterprising students across the UW starting up side projects, RSOs tackling interesting problems, and talented students looking to gain professional experience through collaborative projects.

To get you started, we put together a list of resources to find RSOs and other UW innovation communities.

Coming soon!

No. SIL only can offer the tools we provide and consultation. We don’t directly fund or provide dedicated resources to non-SIL projects.

With that said, we do maintain a list of other UW groups that do provide direct resources and funding to student project work.

We are so glad you asked! We are currently working with UW partners to plan a future hackathon, likely in late-Spring 2026. Subscribe to our email list to receive updates as soon as they are available.

We are dedicated to promoting and showcasing UW student innovation work. Please see our Community Projects information to learn more.

While we don’t currently offer workshops, feel free to email us to let us know what you are interested in and we’ll see what we can do. Also, we are always happy to meet with you directly for a free consultation.

While we can help any UW student think about their project and point them to the UW resources that can best support their work, SIL is focused on supporting UW student innovation projects that focus on problems facing the UW community. CoMotion can help UW community members interested in turning their projects and research into entrepreneurial opportunities and focused on owning/protecting their IP.

If you are interested in physical or computing projects, here is a list of UW resources (Makerspaces, GIX Lab, …) that can specifically support you.

This is a very complicated question, and “it depends” is the only real answer. CoMotion can assist you in figuring out IP ownership and protections for work developed at the UW.

Here is a link to the specific Presidential Order (No.36) that deals with UW IP ownership.

Great question! We’ve got all this covered on our UW Policies page.

We are a service of UW-IT’s Student & Educational Technology Services unit, which provides core funding and resources.

We have additionally received generous support from:

• UW’s Student Technology Fee provided critical funding for the HuskyFetch API (coming in Spring 2026!).
• The Office of the University Registrar donated additional lab space.

We are always interested in new opportunities. If you are passionate about our work and are interested in providing funds or resources for specific collaborations, just email us and we’ll see what we can do.