HGSE Selects 2024 Education Entrepreneurship Summer Fellows

The Harvard Graduate School of Education recently awarded Education Entrepreneurship Summer Fellowships to several members of the community. The program, first launched in 2013, provides funding to allow students and alumni to work full-time on their entrepreneurial ventures during the summer months.

This year’s fellows were recent HGSE alumni with graduation dates between December 2023 and May 2024. Winning fellows submitted a reflection about their entrepreneurial efforts and how a fellowship grant would benefit their venture.

Project applications were reviewed and judged by a committee of HGSE faculty and administrators based on demonstrated leadership and effectiveness, interest in education entrepreneurship, viability of the entrepreneurial venture, and potential impact of the venture.

The six students receiving fellowship awards up to $12,500 for their projects are:

• Kavya Krishna, Ed.M,’24, for Society of Women Coders (SOWCoders), a non-profit that battles gender-based digital inequity in low and middle income countries and other marginalized communities by providing digital literacy and coding training, infrastructure support, culture-specific support, and community building to young girls age 14-17.
• Nathalia Kelday, Ed.M.’24, for Edstation, a startup designed to engage high school students by integrating entrepreneurship with technology and soft skills. Targeting underprivileged communities in Brazil, the program aims to use AI to help collect and analyze social and emotional learning development.
• Kira Akerman, Ed.M.’24, for Voyage at the Edge of the Earth, an educational film series and supplemental curricular resources targeting a high school audience. The series will document a place-based, intergenerational learning journey as a young United Houma Nation woman and her grandfather trace their tribe’s history and future in the face of land loss and sea level rise.
• Alria Kharage, Ed.M.’24, for Asude Foundation, which prepares ninth and tenth grade students for academic success with its North Star Program. Its mission is to empower every student in India with the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
• Ruiz Clark, Ph.D.’26, for Quento, an AI-powered data wrangling tool for organizational learning that intends to help public school systems unlock greater outcomes for students by transforming qualitative and quantitative data into easy-to-use stories of educational impact.
• Helene Wittek, Ed.M.’24, for SEL for Educators – Teaching with the heart and mind, a podcast initiative which aims to bridge the gap between students seeking social-emotional learning and teachers lacking resources and support to unlock student potential. Through the podcast, Wittek aims to provide support and inspiration to enhance social-emotional well-being for students across Germany.