In the fall of 2021, the Harvard Innovation Labs kicked off its 10th anniversary celebration with its “10 for 10” campaign—a yearlong series of monthly features highlighting 10 extraordinary innovations that have come out of the Harvard Innovation Labs since 2011.
This month’s installment features a variety of education- and career-related innovations — from a music application that helps elementary school students improve their vocabulary, to career-focused learning resources and tools for young people in Sub-Saharan Africa. September’s 10 for 10 are:
- The Apprentice Project (TAP) for empowering underprivileged 10-to-14-year-olds to develop social-emotional skills and succeed in the current world. TAP’s highly-skilled volunteers inspire children across the domains of visual arts, performance arts, and technical arts such as coding.
- Coding It Forward for creating new opportunities and pathways for early-career technologists into social impact and civic technology. In 2021, the Biden administration selected Coding It Forward Co-Founder Chris Kuang to lead the newly-created U.S. Digital Corps, a two-year fellowship that recruits early-career technologists to contribute to high-impact efforts across the federal government.
- International Orchestra of Refugees for connecting talented refugee musicians with meaningful opportunities to preserve their cultural heritage, find economic prosperity, and boost social integration.
- Juno for helping people get the lowest private student loan rates. The company has helped secure more than $520 million in loans, with a median lower rate of 1.6%.
- Mission: Mentor for using data to empower people to make better decisions about college admissions. Mission: Mentor has helped thousands of students achieve their college goals.
- My Dental Key for creating an online dental education platform transforming the way students learn dentistry to foster success in class, clinic, and beyond. The company was a winner of the 2021 President’s Innovation Challenge Open Track.
- ProTalento for accelerating tech and digital careers by curating bootcamps, giving flexible loans, and matching people with job opportunities.
- Readlee for building an edtech platform that uses artificial intelligence to improve academic outcomes by listening to students read. It won the grand prize at the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition among 250+ edtech companies from across the world. It is now used in over 1,500 schools.
- Rhymes with Reason for scaling its educational platform that uses popular music to help students learn standardized, literacy-related topics (including vocabulary).
- Slam Out Loud for using the transformational power of the arts to build Creative Confidence skills like communication, critical thinking, and empathy in children aged 6-17 from underserved communities.
