Out of 400+ applications, we've selected 25 finalists who will pitch live on May 6. These ventures represent 11 Harvard schools and are one step closer to winning a share of $500,000+ in Bertarelli Foundation funding.
2026
President’s Innovation Challenge
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All
16
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Agriculture
1
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Biotech and Therapeutics
1
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Business Services
1
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Childhood Development
1
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Digital Health
2
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Education and Learning
2
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Education Technology
1
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Employment, Recruiting, and Workforce Development
1
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Energy, Oil, and Renewables
1
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Government and Civic Engagement
1
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Healthcare Delivery
1
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Medical Devices and Hardware
1
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Public Health and Global Health
2
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All
16
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Harvard Business School
3
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Harvard College
4
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Harvard Extension School
2
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Harvard Graduate School of Design
1
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Harvard Graduate School of Education
2
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Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
2
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Harvard Kennedy School
2
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Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
1
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Harvard Medical School
1
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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
2
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Arul Health
Building an agentic AI operating system for chronic care navigation, starting in oncology and expanding across long-term conditions for patients and families.
![Eshan Vishwakarma]()
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BLKHLTH
Advancing health equity in Black communities through education, advocacy, research, and programs.
![Matthew McCurdy]()
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Bond Health
Accelerating patient enrollment in clinical trials by automating how sites find, contact, and enroll eligible patients.
![Rishabh Goel]()
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Cancer Kids First
Normalizing the hospital experience and building community for pediatric cancer patients through the world’s largest youth-led cancer nonprofit.
![Olivia Zhang]()
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Colombiando
Co-creating a new rural education model with unseen multigrade teachers, turning hard-to-reach one-room schools into learning hubs.
![Valeria Ortiz Jaramillo]()
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ExploreYou
Reimagining career exploration as fun, gamified week-in-the-life simulations that help students discover their strengths, assess their fit, and choose future paths with confidence.
![Vinay Shukla]()
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Fastflo
Accelerating the hiring process for deskless workers by moving it to messaging apps, helping recruiters save time on tedious tasks and hire faster.
![Headshot of young adult man in blazer and button up.]()
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iNERDE Academy
Solving Africa’s teacher shortage by empowering community talent with an AI tutor, so children learn to read 20x faster at a tenth of the cost.
![Mohamed Kante]()
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Maka Kids
The first kids' streaming app built on child development science, not engagement algorithms.
![Maka cofounders]()
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Overture Therapeutics
Creating better, healthier weight-loss intervention therapies for treating obesity and its co-morbidities by targeting emerging biological pathways.
![Russell Beckerman]()
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Refine Technologies, Inc.
Developing AI peer review for research papers that provides reviewer-grade feedback in 30 minutes instead of months.
![Yann Calvo Lopez]()
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Revolv
Turning organic waste into affordable animal feed and fertilizer that boosts farmer incomes and nutrition.
![Biruh Demilew]()
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Sole 1
Restoring mobility for people who cannot lift the front part of their foot using AI-powered robotic socks that assist with walking, prevent falls, and support nerve recovery.
![Sole 1 cofounders]()
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Stenoa
The operating system for mission-critical care.
![]()
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Surna Technologies
Building sovereign AI infrastructure that enables emerging and frontier economies to build, deploy, and monitor their financial systems in real time.
![Hellen Siah Momoh]()
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Winko Solar
Delivering solar-powered oxygen to hospitals in Africa, with plans to expand globally.
![Akonkwa Mubagwa]()
