Solving Public Problems Education Accelerator Changemakers Pitch Impactful Global Projects to Rockefeller Foundation

Five participants from the inaugural Solving Public Problems Education Accelerator recently pitched their social impact projects to the Rockefeller Foundation. 

 The Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University launched the Solving Public Problems Education Accelerator in early 2022 to support and coach leaders and changemakers around the world to further promising and powerful projects designed to improve education and learning outcomes using data and technology.

With applicants from 27 countries, the program started with an online training, followed by personalized coaching and mentoring designed to help participants hone their presentations and advance their innovative projects to implementation.  Ultimately, a group of eighteen diverse finalists were invited to the Rockefeller Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy for an all-expense paid, multi-day, in-person intensive coaching, mentoring, and peer-learning session to refine and further projects. Subsequently five teams were chosen to pitch their proposals to the Rockefeller Foundation:  

Matias Acosta, Shaping Horizons (Argentina) Shaping Horizons is a social benefit company that freely upskills young people in entrepreneurial skills, taking a fee only for successful ventures or new green jobs. Since Shaping Horizons launched in 2021, 250 volunteers have trained 450 young people in the skills needed to create social ventures. A total of 20 percent of the hands-on projects become social enterprises. These alumni social ventures have impacted 2,300 people. Shaping Horizons is seeking funding to to scale operations-impact, marketing and for business development. 

“The Accelerator was a great opportunity to reflect on critical aspects of Shaping Horizons to improve our solution,” said Acosta. “We received a great, personalized experience and met like-minded changemakers that will surely help us expand our impact in the future.”

Rockfund Presentation (February 2023)

Bellagio Presentation (November 2022)

Tainara Lemos, Pode Crer (Brazil) Pode Crer is a social innovation program to equip marginalized youth in the greater Florianópolis region with the skills to participate in the knowledge economy. In its first two years, the Pode Crer has served 620 students. Pode Crer is seeking funding to scale operations and build its first social innovation center in Monte Serrat, which will provide in-person education and extracurricular programming to underserved youth. The project is part of the 40-year old Vilson Groh Institute. 

“The Solving Public Problems Accelerator was transformational in helping us think about how to improve, evaluate and expand our impact with Pode Crer, strengthening its growth path towards becoming a public policy,” said Lemos. “The connections with experts, policymakers, and peers from different backgrounds across the globe, are priceless. The Rockfund Pitch Deck was our first experience doing an international pitch for an organization as relevant and active to global challenges as Rockefeller. It is truly amazing, inspiring and motivating to be connected to committed and determined people and organizations united in a mission-drive to improve education. We are really, really excited to continue on this journey together.”

Rockfund Presentation (February 2023)

Bellagio Presentation (November 2022)

Gabriel Marmentini, Politize! (Brazil) Politize! produces free and unbiased content of political

education on the internet, trains civic leaders for being capable of solving public problems and trains teachers to educate the youth in the process to become an engaged citizen. Since launching seven years ago, Politize!’s civic education content has accrued 89 million unique users and Politize’s curriculum is used by 1,296 teachers in 706 schools across eight states in Brazil, reaching 75,000 students. Politize! is seeking funding for their next three years of growth and sustainability.

"Presenting our ideas to potential funders is essential to refining our narratives, gathering feedback and expanding our network of contacts,” said Marmentini. “Fundraising is an art and involves building long-term relationships and a lot of patience. I am grateful for the opportunity articulated by the GovLab and The Burnes Center for Social Change".

Rockfund Presentation (February 2023)

Jaspreet Singh, ICAAD (Caribbean) ICAAD’s TrackGBV program seeks to improve the justice sector response to violence against women and girls. ICAAD uses data from legal cases to create dashboards for training and policy changes aimed at removing gender bias from judicial decision-making. Past work in the Pacific led to significant legislative and policy changes, and the project is currently scaling to Jamaica, Barbados, and Grenada. ICAAD seeks funding to support TrackGBV for the next five years.

"As part of the Accelerator program, we received excellent advice on how to present our projects to potential funders,” said Singh. “Having the opportunity to then take that advice forward to pitch to the Rockfund was truly a great experience, and getting together with alumni from the program to prepare for the session was an added pleasure."

Rockfund Presentation  (February 2023)

Bellagio Presentation (November 2022)

Marshall Thomas, HealthLearn (United States) HealthLearn is a simple, engaging, mobile-optimized online health worker training to improve clinical skills and health outcomes. HealthLearn has identified simple, high-leverage clinical best practices across ten disease areas that, if consistently implemented, could save many lives. HealthLearn is seeking funding for a pilot with a local partner in Uganda focused on newborn care training for health workers in 2023. 

“The Solving Public Problems program was an excellent opportunity to learn more about social entrepreneurship, focus my work, and hone my pitching skills,” said Thomas. “It was a great privilege to give a short presentation on my project, HealthLearn, to the GovLab and Rockefeller Foundation teams.”

The Burnes Center is now connecting these investment-ready participants with potential funding sources, furthering their chances at success.  

The Accelerator is an example of the Burnes Center’s mission to invest in the upskilling of workers in data, engagement, and entrepreneurship skills in order to advance impactful projects from idea to implementation.