education-equity
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National Math Stars
National Math Stars is a U.S. nonprofit that finds mathematically extraordinary second- and third-graders from all communities and commits to supporting them for up to a decade - through high school graduation. Each selected student receives more than $100,000 in mentorship, advanced coursework, STEM summer experiences, family advising, and community, at no cost to families. Founded in 2023 by former Bain consultant Ilana Walder-Biesanz and seeded with $16.5 million from Carina Initiatives and the Polynera Fund, the organization aims to build a diverse pipeline of talent capable of reaching the frontiers of math and science.
Bold.org
Bold.org is a venture-backed platform on a mission to fight student debt by making it effortless for anyone - individuals, families, companies, and foundations - to create, fund, and manage scholarships, fellowships, and grants. Free for both students and donors, it pairs a two-sided marketplace with the nonprofit Bold Foundation, which holds donations in escrow and sends funds directly to students' schools. Since 2020 it has channeled tens of millions of dollars in tax-deductible financial aid to thousands of students.
Rajen Sheth
Rajen Sheth is the CEO and co-founder of Kyron Learning, a public benefit company using AI to give every student access to high-quality one-on-one teaching. Before founding Kyron, he spent 17 years at Google, where he was the original product manager behind Google Apps (now Workspace), launched Chromebooks for Education, and rose to Vice President of Google Cloud AI and Industry Solutions. A Stanford-trained engineer who once pitched enterprise Gmail to Eric Schmidt and got turned down, he has built tools used by millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of students, then walked away from big tech to chase a teacher-shaped problem he has carried since sixth grade.
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a philanthropy and technology organization founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, structured as an LLC. Once spanning education, science, justice reform and housing, CZI has refocused on a single audacious goal: helping scientists cure, prevent or manage all disease by the end of the century. Its flagship CZ Biohub network now builds AI 'virtual cell' models, generates massive biological datasets, and ships free open-source tools so researchers everywhere can move faster.
Stephanie Ferguson
Stephanie Ferguson is Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Global Demand Center (GDC), the unified engine that powers all of Microsoft's global digital customer engagement. With 25+ years at Microsoft and a career that spans IBM, the insurance industry, and a family fashion business, she built the GDC from the ground up — combining data, digital marketing, and AI into a single connected sales-and-marketing machine. A Wharton MBA and Dartmouth economics graduate, she is also a passionate advocate for equity in education and served as Board President of the Bellevue Schools Foundation.
Jennifer Carolan
Jennifer Carolan is co-founder and general partner at Reach Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm she helped build from the ground up to become the most active dedicated edtech investor in the US. A former K-12 history teacher in Chicago who spent nine years learning venture capital at NewSchools Venture Fund, she has since deployed four funds totaling over $500M across 100+ education technology companies. Her portfolio has produced five unicorns including ClassDojo and Handshake, and she continues to teach at Stanford while backing the entrepreneurs she believes are removing the obstacles standing between people and opportunity.
Hydra Mendoza
Hydra Mendoza is the VP and Chief of Strategic Relationships in the Office of the Chair and CEO at Salesforce, where she builds and stewards key stakeholder relationships across government, community, and corporate sectors. A native San Franciscan born to a Filipino military family, she made history as the first and only Filipina ever elected to office in San Francisco - serving three terms on the SF Unified School District Board. Her career spans community organizing, mayoral advising, school board leadership, and overseeing communications for the nation's largest public school system before joining Salesforce, where she co-architected the company's original educational investments alongside Marc Benioff.
Dror Liebenthal
Dror Liebenthal is the Israeli-born cofounder and CEO of Bold.org, a San Francisco-based platform that enables anyone — individual or company — to create and manage scholarships, fellowships, and grants at no cost. A Princeton Chemical Engineering graduate (magna cum laude, Class of 2015) who was the first in his family to navigate the US education system, Liebenthal built Bold.org after personally experiencing how a single scholarship changed his trajectory. The platform operates the Bold Foundation (501c3), has distributed millions in student scholarships, and pairs its philanthropy product with the Bold Debit Card, a fintech tool designed to help students manage their money and reduce debt.
Frances Messano
Frances Messano is CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy that backs early-stage education entrepreneurs across the U.S. A Brooklyn native, first-generation college graduate, and Harvard-trained economist, she left Wall Street (Morgan Stanley equity derivatives) for a decade-long arc through consulting and Teach For America before landing at NewSchools in 2015. She rose to President, built the Diverse Leaders investment strategy, and in January 2023 became the organization's first woman of color to serve as CEO. Under her leadership, NewSchools has deployed $23M+ supporting 80 teams in a single year, with 76% of portfolio companies led by people of color.