The Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) is a national nonprofit, founded in 1975, that empowers Latino families with the knowledge and resources to complete a higher education, while providing scholarships and support services to as many students as possible. Beyond financial awards ranging from $500 to $5,000, HSF connects roughly 10,000 selected Scholars each year to mentoring, career conferences, internships and employer partners. Through 2022 it had distributed more than $700 million in scholarships, and it now serves over 40,000 Scholars, alumni, parents and community members annually across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Melanie Kaloski is the Chief Marketing Officer of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF), the nation's largest nonprofit supporting Hispanic American higher education. A brand-builder by training, she spent more than a decade shaping consumer brands at Capital Group's American Funds, Nestle and Beachbody before turning her marketing craft toward mission work - helping Latino students and families find the resources to earn a college degree. She holds a B.A. from Amherst College and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, and is fluent in French.
Studyportals is a Netherlands-based education platform that helps students discover and compare study programs anywhere in the world. Through nine portals - including Mastersportal, Bachelorsportal, PhDportal and Scholarshipportal - it lists more than 240,000 English-taught programs from over 3,500 institutions across 110+ countries, drawing roughly 50 million student visitors a year. For universities, it turns that global demand data into recruitment, analytics and consulting services, and in 2024 it launched an AI Student Advisor named Sophia, built with AWS, to guide applicants in more than 20 languages.
Ola Guild Games (OLA GG) is the largest Web3 gaming community in the Spanish-speaking world, operating as a regional subDAO of Yield Guild Games. Founded by lifelong Hispanic gamers, it onboards players across Latin America and Spain into blockchain games through NFT scholarships, Web3 education, and a shared-rewards model that lets people play and earn without upfront cost. In 2022 it raised $8 million in seed funding from investors including Galaxy Interactive, BITKRAFT, and Arca.
Scholarships360 is a free, data-driven platform that helps students and families find and fund college. Founded by first-generation college students Will and Brian Geiger, it matches students with vetted scholarships, hosts its own $10,000 'No Essay' scholarship, and pairs listings with expert financial aid and admissions advice. The company says over 15 million students have discovered scholarships and colleges through the platform, with more than 5 million matched in 2025 alone.
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.
Will Geiger is the cofounder and CEO of Scholarships360, a free platform that helps students find and win scholarships to pay for college. A first-generation college graduate himself, he spent nearly a decade inside the admissions machine - reading more than 10,000 applications as a Senior Assistant Director of Admissions at Kenyon College, running its merit scholarship program, and counseling teenagers through the college maze at Hopkins School - before teaming up with his brother Brian to rebuild the broken scholarship search from scratch. Scholarships360 raised a $250,000 seed round in 2021 and now reaches students nationwide with vetted scholarships and personalized financial aid guidance.

Jason Kong is a General Partner at Base10 Partners, a San Francisco-based Black-led venture capital firm that backs founders automating the 'real economy' - the large, often overlooked industries that make the world run. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital in 2021 while at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Kong backed breakout companies including Attentive, Brex, Datadog, Discord, Figma, and UiPath. A Summa Cum Laude graduate of Penn's elite M&T program who qualified twice for USAMO and won the We the People national civics competition, he joined Base10 in 2023 to lead Series B+ investments, bringing a singular blend of investment banking, late-stage VC, and hedge fund analysis discipline to growth-stage bets on vertical SaaS, cybersecurity, and fintech.
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.