Powered by DU
Building a stronger Denver together
Denver has long been a home for social change and economic innovation, from its humble origins as a frontier mining town to its current reputation as a nurturing environment for startups, community-driven nonprofits and expansion by world-leading businesses.
We champion our responsibility as a convener, engaging with businesses, creators, advocates and community groups to ensure the intellectual potential developed on our campus supports healthy urban growth and lifts up underserved populations in our city. Powered by DU, these partnerships, research projects and community initiatives strive to build a more inclusive, authentic and vibrant city for all.
Powering Prison Reform in Denver
In March of 2020, a cross-disciplinary team of DU scholars and researchers received a $200,000 grant from the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center to fund prison reform initiatives and inquiry. Building on DU's commitment to improving the lives of incarcerated people in Colorado, this program joins DU Prison Arts Initiative and other projects that strive to create scalable plans for prison and justice reform that can be adopted by carceral centers in our city and across the nation.
Stories of Change
DU Alumni Share Culture through Food
Blending hospitality and food culture with entrepreneurship, many DU alumni have launched restaurants or food trucks in the Denver area celebrating a wide range of foods from indigenous cultures and other diverse origins.
Read MoreDU Innovation Lab Helps Fight COVID-19
Using advanced equipment at DU's innovation lab, alumni, current students and faculty devised a way to create protective face masks for the front-line health care workers fighting Colorado's coronavirus outbreak.
Read MoreDU Takes on Sustainable Mobility
Alumni, students and faculty develop sustainable transport on campus and beyond, piloting new initiatives that will help Denver transition to a less carbon-intensive transportation infrastructure.
Read More
Moving Denver Forward
As a private university dedicated in the public good, we embody values of community support and social enterprise throughout our approach to excellence. From world-changing health research to initiatives like DU's Grand Challenges that bring socially minded entrepreneurship and education to communities in need, we strive to transform the intellectual and institutional potential housed on our campus into solutions to our most pressing challenges.
