SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ReachOut’s Social Entrepreneurship Program
grants up to $15,000 annually in seed funding to help student entrepreneurs pursue social, cultural or environmental non-profit startup ventures. Princeton alumni finance the grants, which are awarded each year to one or more students/student groups. The alumni may also participate in mentoring applicants and judging the Social Entrepreneurship competition, which is held at the University each spring.
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The Social Entrepreneurship grants, which are paid out over the course of a year, are given to students with ideas that are original and to teams likely to succeed over time. ReachOut’s Social Entrepreneurship Program has provided initial seed funding to many impactful ventures started by Princetonians, including:
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BoxPower (a provider of standalone power systems in rural and remote areas)
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HomeWorks Trenton, Inc. (a weekday boarding school for public high school girls in marginalized communities)
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ConnectUPskill (uses AI to build pipeline of diverse talent for skilled jobs)
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GPTZero (an AI detector to see if a document was written by a large language model such as ChatGPT)
Alumni interested in getting involved should contact Colin Emerson '08.
Students interested in applying should contact Daniel Greene '28.
Recent Social Entrepreneurship Winners Include:
2025​
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Fortify delivers personalized, context-rich content that teaches English naturally through an AI-assisted feed to immigrant adults in the U.S. with limited English proficiency. (Aabid Ismail '25)
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Ember Learning helps high school teachers save time and give more personalized feedback to students using AI to learn from each teacher’s materials and grading style to provide interactive practice and real-time feedback to students. (Steven Goetz '28)
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EduMenu addresses the lack of accessible, personalized, and accurate nutritional information in campus dining for students with dietary restrictions, cultural preferences, or health goals by creating white-labeled mobile apps that integrate directly with the institution's dining data. (Luke Sanborn '28 and Ralitsa Hovanessian '27)
2024
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Curbon identifies environmentally-friendly clothing items and built an app and clothing label in partnership with the Princeton U-Store and apparel companies. (Chanseok Hwang '27, Jackie Liu '26, Joe Wahba '26, and Mayan Wasu '27)
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HealCycle targets women suffering from Premenstrual Dysmorphic Disorder (PMDD) by building an app for working women in urban India to track their PMDD issues and connect with healthcare resources. (Anaya Grover '24)
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Heu Learning provides effective English-as-a-Second-Language training for immigrants in US cities by building a machine-learning-enabled “ESL in a Box” toolkit for community organizations. (Francis Barth '24)
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Nirvana Carbon Solutions tackles pollution from farmland stubble burning in India, creating a carbon credit program to fund tractor-enabled re-seeding as an alternative to stubble burning (Emma Limor '25 and Sunrit Panda '25)