I’m most proud of scaling a 21-day wellbeing audio program that we co-wrote with our partners in India to 5,000 individuals, including Covid-19 patients during the spike this spring. The program has been proven numerous times to increase emotional awareness and regulation, as well as decrease stress. This fall, the local government will make the program available to 50,000 educators.
The Rita Wilson Grant Fund in Support of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Rita Wilson Grant Fund in support of Innovation and Entrepreneurship will award sliding scale grants to student-led ventures focused on social innovation in public health and education.
Ventures will be supported with grants to build and test innovative solutions which address a health or education challenge that disproportionately impacts low-income communities in the United States or low-resource countries.
Funding is prioritized for student-led ventures in the early ideation stage. Key markers of the early ideation stage include but are not limited the ability to articulate your idea and the problem you are trying to solve, basic research about target customers and key competitors, ability to describe how you might implement this idea in a way that is sustainable over time, work on customer/user discovery and have received validation from your target audience and ability to share what milestones you have reached in your customer/user discovery. Funding will be offered on a sliding scale depending on the demonstrated need.
This fund was created in 2019 with a generous gift to the Yale School of Public Health. The gift is managed by InnovateHealth Yale based at the Yale School of Public Health.
Applications will be open again the Fall of 2025.
To learn more and get support with your venture, schedule office hours with Fatema Basrai, Managing Director.
FAQs
- What types of ventures are applicable for this prize?
- Any student-led venture which addresses a health or education challenge that disproportionately impacts low-income communities in the United States or low-resource countries. The ventures can be for-profit or non-profit ventures.
- What regions should ventures be serving?
- Ventures should be focused on low-income communities in the United States or low-resource countries.
- How can I best prepare my application and receive feedback?
- Schedule office hours with Fatema Basrai, Managing Director.