The tradition continues! Fall quarter at the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering at UC Riverside once again kicked off with the Annual BCOE Match Challenge - now in its fifth year. Each October, this month-long Dean’s Innovation Fund fundraiser provides direct and immediate support for 16 of the college’s engineering professional student organizations.

This year, BCOE organizations raised $106,000 from 358 unique donors, with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) raising the most. Overall, NSBE raised $26,753 from 51 donors; $23,103 of that will be invested in their endowed fund to provide a sustainable source of future support. The rest will be available to them to use this year for projects, professional development, mentoring and community outreach activities. Other top performing organizations included Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) with 77 donors, Cyber@UCR with 43 donors, and BioMedical Engineering Society (BMES) with 40 donors.

All donations between $25 to $1,000 were matched by a generous gift from the lead sponsor Triad Magnetics and other donors to the college. "Triad Magnetics is happy to support the growth of future engineers as they gain hands-on, real-life project experience," said Bill Dull, UCR alumnus and president of Triad Magnetics. "With students learning to give back through outreach and volunteering, we hope they will become lifelong stewards in their profession."

Student organizations also competed for $1,000 in weekly bonus funds for attracting the most unique donors. Cyber@UCR took home the first prize during the first week of the challenge, FSAE during week 2, BMES during week 3, and NSBE during the final week of the challenge. Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Women in Computing (WinC) also placed in the top 3 during the month.

The weekly challenges were made possible with support from Sam Konyn, a UCR alumnus and UC Riverside Foundation Trustee  who established the Cathleen and Sam Konyn Endowed Student Project Fund for collaborative projects for students from different colleges and departments.. "I am glad to give these amazing students motivation to increase support for their professional development and projects. The hands-on experience will surely help them in the future," said Konyn.

Through their contributions, donors supported student projects and national competitions, professional and leadership development, K-12 community outreach, special events, and more.

"The support for our engineering students is overwhelming and continues to surprise us every year," says Huinan Liu, professor of bioengineering and materials science and engineering and associate dean for student affairs at BCOE. "We are grateful to those who continue to help increase our student’s professional and leadership skills and look forward to building a larger community for them."

For more than 75 years, Triad Magnetics has been a global leader in the design and manufacture of transformers, power supplies, and inductors for a wide range of applications, including switch mode/high frequency, wall plug-in, power transformers, inductors, and audio transformers.  In addition to Triad’s extensive standard product line of magnetic components, its California Design Center provides custom solutions with rapid prototyping and testing.