Each year, MassChallenge welcomes 128 promising startups to Boston to launch and grow their early-stage ventures. By activating a community of support from top corporates, industry veterans, expert mentors, and more, startups from around the world have the opportunity to create impact in Boston and beyond.
Selected from more 1,600 applications, the 2018 cohort is one of the most-competitive to date. It also is one of our most diverse, representing the highest-impact startups across all backgrounds, regions, and industries.
While we saw growth in all areas compared to years past, we are especially encouraged by the number of startups in the social impact space, which make up 9% of this year’s cohort. As a social impact venture, entrepreneurs are working to solve some of the greatest challenges impacting society – from improving access to quality education to reforming public health policy.
To ensure that the barriers to entry are lowered and that they have every opportunity to succeed, we partnered with BNY Mellon to offer $5,000 scholarships to non-profit and for-profit startups developing new and innovative solutions to critical social problems.
Committed to taking an innovative approach to philanthropy and exploring unique programs and partnerships catalyzing world-changing social innovations, BNY Mellon was specifically interested in supporting entrepreneurs addressing:
- Economic empowerment
- Long-term economic development and sustainability in under-served communities
- Socially responsible entrepreneurship
- Technology and digital capacity building
- STEM education for girls
- Pathways to tech careers for youth through education
- Women in technology initiatives
- Digital and financial literacy
In the next two posts, we’ll introduce this year’s BNY Mellon Scholarship for Social Impact winners, who are able to expand their reach and impact with support from the global investments organization.
This post is part of a three-part series introducing the winners of our BNY Mellon Scholarship for Social Impact.