NewSchools Venture Fund: NewSchools Ignite – Expanded Definition of Student Success Challenge

NewSchools Ignite Expanded Definition of Student Success Challenge is seeking to fund entrepreneurs developing technology-enabled learning experiences, instructional content, learning diagnostics, administrative tools, and other products that promote an expanded definition of student success by enhancing academic and social-emotional learning and supporting the development of nurturing school and classroom environments.

The most promising ed tech innovations will support the development of a range of social-emotional competencies, cognitive skills, and attributes of positive learning environments. As such, NewSchools expects that challenge winners will address one or more critical areas of student need:

• Promoting school readiness and skills that enable successful school transitions
• Integrating social-emotional development into core academic learning
• Enabling new ways to measure and analyze an expanded set of student outcomes
• Building teachers’, parents’, and communities’ capacity to support an expanded definition of student success

Amount: A total of $1,500,000 is available to make awards that range from $50,000-$150,000.

Eligibility: Companies and nonprofit organizations developing technology-enabled products that:

• Address one or more of the critical student needs identified by educators
• Are accessible and usable by a wide range of children – especially students from underserved populations
• Support teachers’, communities’, and/or parents’ roles in student learning
• Support teachers’ delivery of tailored instruction
• Have potential for wide distribution and to generate sustainable revenue
• Align with NewSchools’ diligence and investment criteria

Note: Recipients will participate in two in-person convenings and a twelve-month virtual accelerator program. Challenge winners do not need to re-locate to participate in other program elements. The virtual accelerator program will last for approximately twelve months, featuring targeted content and feedback delivered via phone/video meetings, web-based presentations, and opportunities for online collaboration.

Link: https://www.newschools.org/ignite/program/expanded-definition-of-student-success-challenge/