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Seed for Change Student Grant Competition

Awards up to $30,000 to Catalyze Change in India

The Seed for Change (SFC) student competition provides monetary prizes to bold, creative ideas that have the potential for widespread impact in India. The SFC competition aims to develop a vibrant ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship by supporting interdisciplinary student projects that could positively impact social, economic, and environmental issues in India.

Awards and Eligibility

One grand prize of up to $30,000 will be awarded each year, operating on a twelve-month project timeline; up to two runner-up prizes of up to $5,000 may be awarded for exploratory travel grants in the summer

Harvard undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to apply.  Only projects that take place in India can be submitted for consideration, and projects in the early seed stages are prioritized over start-ups that have previously received support.

Applications are due February 2, 2024.

Select Winning Projects

Gramhal: Gramhal is a social enterprise that builds smallholder farmers’ agency and increases their income by unlocking post-harvest services of storage, credit, and market linkage via a digital platform.

  • Vikas Birhma, MPP ’19 at Harvard Kennedy School
  • Pankaj Mahalle, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai


Riskboard:
Riskboard is an app in development that will harness online data via social media and open source media data sites to monitor political risk and human rights abuses in India.

  • Pradeepan Parthiban, ALM ’19 at Harvard and Tech + Human Rights researcher at Harvard Kennedy School
  • Ori Pleban, MPP ‘19 at Harvard Kennedy School
  • Arjun Bisen, MPP ’19 at Harvard Kennedy School
  • Ryan Jiang, BA ’20 at Harvard College

MeetMeet is an employment app for India that connects verified employers and job-seekers, providing both with trusted information, such as reviews, job openings, and profiles to support better matching.

  • Vish Srivastava, MDE ’19 at Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
  • Ankit Chugh, Medha, India

Please reach out to Selmon Rafey (srafey@fas.harvard.edu) with any questions.

 

The Seed for Change competition is made possible by a generous grant from KP Balaraj MBA ’97 and Sumir Chadha MBA ‘97.