We know the entrepreneurial ecosystem needs work: underrepresented entrepreneurs need more resources; the investor landscape needs to evolve; and cities need stronger local economies. These beliefs are what have driven our work to evolve and to continue to create new programs and opportunities. We are conscious of our place in the small-but-growing social entrepreneurship support sphere; Camelback was one of the first organizations to exclusively focus on people of color and women, and we do not take our role and responsibilities lightly. We thoroughly read and discuss every application that comes our way. Every year, it is humbling to learn about all the incredible people working hard to improve their schools, communities, regions, cities, and country. We are honored that you want us to be a part of your journey.

This month, we'll be interviewing and selecting our 2019 cohort of 12 - 15 leaders. This is the stage where we wish we could accept every organization. We truly believe in the potential of these ventures and appreciate the passion of the founders. We hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as we have.

To all candidates: thank you again for sharing your vision with us, and thank you for all that you do. Finalists, looking forward to our conversations.

View Non-Profits | View For-Profits & Hybrids | View Schools
We have included a brief description and websites, both as provided by candidates. The order has been shuffled for all categories.

NONPROFITS

Use the arrows to the right to scroll through Finalists

IssueVoter - Maria Yuan

www.issuevoter.org

People use IssueVoter to get alerts about new bills related to issues they care about, send opinions to their Representative before Congress votes, & track how often s/he represents them; becoming more informed voters at the next election. To give students & teachers a voice, IssueVoter partners w/ high schools & Colleges/Universities to provide year-round, real-time civic education & engagement.

Wise Young Builders - Elijah Moses

www.wiseyoungbuilders.org

Wise Young Builders bridges youth to the STEM trades and construction industry, helping community realize the practicality and value in skill development. We help youth design and build projects, meet real estate developers, visit construction sites, use tools and engage in activities to increase their interest in math and STEM related fields. We increase their confidence, aptitude and exposure.

Eight Million Stories - Marvin Pierre

www.eightmillionstories.org

Our organization provides disconnected youth (16-18 years of age) an opportunity to complete their education by way of getting a GED and provides them with occupational skills training where they leave with certifications in food-handling, customer service and warehouse fork-lift operation. Lastly, youth gain access to services to address their emotional and behavioral health needs.

MindWorks Collaborative, Inc - Martrice Gandy

www.mindworkscollab.org

We help special education leaders of color to design and implement equity initiatives that interrupt exclusionary practices and biases to improve the outcomes and experiences for diverse students with disabilities. We also build coalitions with organizations to create the structures needed to ensure lasting change by recruiting and retaining diverse special education personnel.

Miami EdTech - Juan Vazquez

www.miamiedtech.com

The technological advancements of the 21st century have transformed entire industries, allowing them to become more efficient, more customer-centered, and socially responsive. In the field of education, however, the impact potential of this technology has yet to be fully realized. We seek to close the digital divide by creating a community of socially innovative and tech-savvy educators.

Sacred Generations - Percilla Frizzell

www.sacredgenerations.org

Our nation’s leading advocacy orgs promote organizing models that reflect a western dominant culture of moving people to action from a place of fear & anxiety, perpetuating trauma and fostering toxic ecosystems of change. Sacred Generations introduces an Indigenous organizing model building civic leadership and power to heal system-impacted tribal communities in Native California.

Rural Opportunity Institute - Vichitra Jagannathan

www.ruralopportunity.org

We convene stakeholders across rural Eastern North Carolina to understand the causes of generational trauma in the community; to create a community-wide strategy to disrupt and prevent generational cycles of trauma; and to design, pilot and sustain solutions that align with this strategy and ultimately shift systems away from punishment and towards healing for people experiencing trauma.

Youth Empowerment Broadcasting Organization (YEBO) - Cory Montalvo

www.yebomedia.org

The Youth Empowerment Broadcasting Organization (YEBO) is an in-depth, multi-year youth development and media makerspace partner for schools that helps youth in grades 5-8 surface and define their voice and discover their passions. Through transportable media labs, students explore, develop, and operate media-based enterprises through the lens of social justice and civic engagement.

The Marcy Lab School - Reuben Ogbonna

www.marcylabschool.org

The Marcy Lab School is a post-secondary education program designed to prepare low-income students of color for full-time careers in software engineering. We combine a year-long technical curriculum with socio-emotional/leadership development programming and a service-based apprenticeship to ensure that students are not only prepared to succeed as engineers but also as leaders and professionals.

Pay Our Interns - Carlos Vera

www.payourinterns.com

Pay Our Interns promotes paid internships and pushes organizations to convert their internship program from unpaid to paid. Once an organization starts offering paid internships, we connect students from underrepresented communities with these new paid opportunities. Simply put, we are creating a diverse talent pipeline one paid internship at a time.

Youth Activism Project - Anika Manzoor

www.youthactivismproject.org

Youth Activism Project helps teens from any background build the skills, networks, and resources to create and lead advocacy campaigns on issues they are deeply passionate about. YAP teaches advocacy skills through our digital, peer-created Guide to Change, facilitates community between youth and adult mentors, and builds youth power by creating connections for exchanges with other teen activists.

Think of Us - Sixto Cancel

www.thinkof-us.org/

Think of Us supports youth with experience in foster care between the ages of 14 and 26 with software that coaches them through their full transition into adulthood. Within this software, youth will be able to build and grow their network of supporters, who will then be activated to support youth in every facet of their journey, from finding a job to improving their grades to exploring their passions.

MindCatcher - Nakeyshia Kendall

mindcatcher.org

MindCatcher cultivates the agency of students of color and working class youth by partnering with their teachers to create student interest collaborations during the school day. We connect classrooms with industry partners and facilitate professional development workshops for educators. Topics include awareness building, co-design, community-industry partnership, reflection and data synthesis.

FOR-PROFITS & HYBRIDS

Use the arrows to the right to scroll through Finalists

Activist Graduate School - Micah White

www.activistgraduateschool.com/

Activist Graduate School faculty teach in-person activist seminars at universities, such as Bard College and UCLA. Each seminar is supplemented with an evening symposium featuring prominent activist guest lecturers, such as the co-creator of Black Lives Matter and the co-creator of Kony2012. These courses and symposia are filmed, edited and made available to online students worldwide.

Startup League - Annee Ngo

www.startupleague.io

Startup League gamifies education to create greater access and opportunity for all students. We offer two solutions: ProtoHack and QUP. ProtoHack is an innovation challenge for students to learn about taking their ideas and bringing them to life. QUP is a real-time, mobile game for students to learn problem solving and win cash prizes for their fundraisers.

WEPOWER - Charli Cooksey

www.we-power-stl.org/

To activate community power to redesign harmful systems, WE host gatherings and amplify resident voice. WE build residents leadership capacity, publish their policy and systems solutions, support their advocacy campaigns, and provide placement into systems leadership roles. WE accelerate social-tech ventures, and part of the returns go to partner communities to resource policy and systems change.

B-360 - Brittany Young

www.b360baltimore.org

Our Stem education program hires former street riders ( 16+) to teach elementary and middle school students how to build, code, design and 3D print model size dirt bikes to instill the engineering design process. Then in the summer time students and riders work on teams to focus on riding safety, skills training, repairing and building actual dirt bikes.

TasselTurn - Shanté Elliott

www.tasselturn.org

TasselTurn helps youth in foster care stay in and graduate from high school. We accomplish this by solving the educational displacement youth in foster care experience. We provide youth in foster care personalized, evidence-informed, education coaching over the web.

Floop Edu - Melanie Kong

www.floopedu.com

Floop works with teachers and students to identify pain points in the learning feedback loop. We build mobile-friendly solutions for teachers so they can create equitable feedback systems that support all learners. We offer resources and professional development opportunities so that teachers can improve their feedback systems and shift the locus of control from teacher-focused to learner-focused.

KlickEngage - Samantha Pratt

www.klickengage.com

KlickEngage creates education technology. We allow students to self-report their emotional well-being daily through a scaled survey system. Based on their responses, students are given targeted coping mechanisms. Teachers receive real-time reports of where every student starts their day, allowing them to be proactive instead of reactive to student need.

Little Bird - Jill Tew

www.trylittlebird.com

Meeting with parents and service providers is an important part of a Special Education teacher’s job, but scheduling meetings is a huge pain that doesn’t always result in parents showing up. Little Bird automatically schedules meetings for teachers. We use a combination of text message and web technology to ensure high parent attendance, and we do it without taking up any teacher time.

Intervene - Aaron McCloud

www.intervene.io

We provide comprehensive K-12 intervention support, that includes formative assessments and live person driven online group tutoring. We use fuse authentic culturally relevant instruction with data and objective driven lessons to close academic skill gaps.

Social Cipher - Vanessa Gill

www.socialciphergame.com/

Social Cipher is an empowering video game for kids with autism. With an interdisciplinary team from neuroscience and game design, Social Cipher combines the needs of real families with scientific research and the magic of gameplay and story. We aim to empower kids to embrace their autism and to make social skills practice more accessible to families in terms of time and cost.

HEARD - Deena Minwalla

www.heardnow.co

Family engagement in a child’s education is one of the most powerful yet most neglected supports at school. HEARD is a private and dynamic communications hub that’s making it easier, more effective and inclusive to engage families at schools and in classrooms by facilitating transparency, ensuring democratic access, and helping teachers support families to extend student learning to home.

i-Subz - Jasmine Edwards

www.i-subz.com

i-Subz is a recruiting and placement marketplace for substitute teachers and Title 1 schools. For schools, we offer prescreened substitutes on demand. For substitutes, easy access to jobs and same day pay. This allows students to be matched with motivated substitutes that are passionate about their success in the classroom.

Teach X - Tanysha Nunnally

www.goteachx.org

In order to better equip and prepare black students for college and career, Teach X provides training and technology to support teachers in designing authentic learning experiences. Through our training and mobile application, teachers connect and collaborate with industry professionals to create authentic learning experiences that enable students to engage with real-world problems and solutions.

Upstream Storybooks - Stacy McCoy Prime

www.upstreamstorybooks.com

We create physical and digital storybooks, curriculum, and training that promotes social equity, sustainability, & innovation in a simple way to children and the adults that care for them/teach them. We train teachers to utilize the storybooks and story extensions (curriculum), to engage children with these topics and build children's capacity for critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration.

SCHOOLS

Use the arrows to the right to scroll through Finalists

CODEd Academy - Kennan Scott

www.codedacademy.school

CODEd’s model uses computer science (CS) and technology to unlock the creative genius in all students. Students’ core academic experiences are personalized to reflect their unique identities, understandings, and interests and inspire relevant problem solving. CODEd’s a fully-integrated cs school where technology and computational thinking skills are used to reinforce learning in all subjects.

Community Exceptional Children's Services - Shawn Hearn

Our organization provides high quality, education, primary health care and transition services for young people who have demonstrated characteristics of the disability category Emotional/Behavioral Disorders and those in need of transition from a more restricted learning environment to a less restricted learning environment. Our teaching and learning model is hands-on and project based.

Invictus Leadership Academy (ILA) - LaTonya Derbigny

www.invictusla.org

Invictus Leadership Academy will provide an unparalleled public education to underserved families in Watts. Our innovative model not only accelerates academic achievement in critical core subject areas but also links social activism to STEM through Justice in Action Missions (community-based) and Impossible Projects (student interest-based); where the findings are presented to local civic leaders.

Academy for Creating Excellence - Marcus Harden

www.ACEAcademyWA.org

ACE serves young men entering the 7th grade through 12th grade with an optional 13th year. ACE has a population focus on African American males and young males of color who have historically been underserved in traditional school models. ACE believes that education happens best through intentional experiences. ACE concurrently serves as a demonstration model to recruit black male educators.

Raíces del Saber Xinachtli Community School - Lucia V. Carmona

www.raicesdelsaber.org

Raíces del Saber Xinachtli Community School is an elementary school relevant to our US/Mexico borderland population that embraces cultural values to enrich student learning. The traditional Xinachtli pedagogy is based on four pillars of innovative, evidence-based teaching. These include Biliteracy using 90/10 dual language immersion, Mesoamerican Indigenous Ways of Knowledge, Identity Formation, and Community-led Development.

I3 Academy - Martin Nalls

I3 Academy--the first charter school in Birmingham, AL--will enroll over 400 children in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Birmingham. Modeling our work on other charter networks that emphasize rigorous, student-centered learning and social-emotional growth, we will teach our students through thoughtful, inquiry-based content that helps them become engaged and passionate learners and leaders.

Believe Schools - Kimberly Neal

We believe that if we intensively prepare our leaders in the 9th grade through strong remediation, social/emotional/cultural intelligence programming, personal and professional purpose and identity work we can accelerate their preparation for college and career readiness. The profile of a graduate from Believe will have attained an associate degree or career certification before they complete HS.

The Destiny House - LaShundra Richmond

From its roots as a service-based network, the Destiny House provides advisory services and support towards the education and welfare of women, children and families in the Greater Memphis Area. Through collaborative partnerships, the Destiny House is able to create a systematic approach towards the forward mobility of women and children.

Encore STEM Academy - Kim Edward Bradley

www.encorestemacademy.org

All children deserve a quality education to be prepared to think deeply so they will become the innovators, educators and leaders who will solve challenges facing our world, but there is a chronic equity and access gap for STEM education in urban communities. ESA is filling that gap by preparing elementary students in OM with a STEM curriculum to overcome poverty and be successful in any field.

Generation Success - Brandy Williams

www.gensuccessnola.org

Generation Success is one of few organizations in New Orleans, and nationally, designed for learners with exceptionalities at both ends of the Special Education spectrum. We provide equity through project-based, self-directed, personalized learning modules. Our students genuinely drive their education. Equally, we teach our students how to advocate for themselves, and develop life skills.

Evolve Public Charter School - Laura DeLima

At Evolve, we empower students to own their education and their life path by providing them voice, choice, and opportunity. Each student co-creates a purposeful learning plan with the support of their advisor and parent that guides their unique educational journey through inspiring project-based coursework within school, and a robust internship and certification program beyond the classroom.

The Greenhouse Academy of Professional Partners (GAPP) - Tracey Dumas Clark

The GAPP is a teacher powered micro-school in which teachers form their own business to practice the profession of teaching. Teacherprenuers facilitate instructional and administrative duties while incorporating the feedback of Student Designers. No one single person holds all the power. Decisions are an ongoing collaboration of all teachers and students using a shared governance model.

Irene Morgan Schools - Adrienne Wallace

www.irenemorganschools.org

Irene Morgan Schools builds schools, entrepreneurial programs and provides legal services that ensure that the needs of children leaving incarceration are met, so that they don't return to incarceration and so that they can learn and master the academic and social and emotional skills they'll need to lead net positive lives.

The Next Generation Academy - Dr. Bethel Cager

www.thenga2019.wixsite.com/thenga

The NGA will be a high school that connects a democratic learning environment for students to real-life issues. Students will design and implement project-based service learning to find viable solutions to relevant matters within our community. Learning will align to four civic pathways - Health and Wellness, Housing, Judicial System, and Election Process.

Ivy New Orleans Leadership Academy - Jaime Johnson-Duplessis

www.ivynola.org

At Ivy New Orleans Leadership Academy we are guided by three design principles to set aspirational goals and create a foundation for carrying out our mission: equity, deeper learning, and innovation. Our school model combines project based learning, technology integration, and individualized support to facilitate a learning environment which prepares our scholars for post-secondary success.

Celebrate the 2019 Camelback Finalists

NONPROFITS

FOR-PROFITS & HYBRIDS

SCHOOLS