Westly Prize for Young Social Innovators
Westly Grand Prize Winners 2026
GreenSight is developing an AI powered platform that helps the IT asset disposition industry recover more value from used electronics while improving efficiency and reducing electronic waste.
Psyche Care provides technology enabled mental health support that empowers parents with evidence-based tools and coaching to help children and teens manage serious mental health challenges at home.
Recalivape RESET is developing a data driven platform that helps people quit vaping through personalized nicotine reduction, real time monitoring, and remote support for long term success.
Note: Westly Grand Prize Winners are noted below in bold font.
Westly Prize 2026
Ellie Sangree & Jesse Wexler - Eutroback creates nature-based technologies to improve water quality.
Haddasah Batapudi & Elijah Kim - Esslo is democratizing access to higher education by giving every student immediate, expert feedback to improve their college application essays.
Nam Nguyen, Noy Chatoyan, & Jacqueline Franco - Bioflare has built a compact kitchen device that converts household food waste into energy for cooking without needing access to power or the grid.
Roman Scott & Itbaan Nafi - Breakthrough Ventures is a start-up accelerator supporting young student founders with their start-up innovations.
Sepehr Kosavi - AI Scouts teaches teens real-world skills to succeed in today’s world, starting with AI.
Westly Prize 2025
Alper Gel & Charlie McDonald - RescueSight, leverages advanced autonomous drone technology and AI to provide first responders with a comprehensive view of disaster areas.
Reetam Ganguli - Elythea, Bay Area-based venture focuses on early detection and intervention in high-risk pregnancies using machine learning language models and AI engagement.
Ashmita Kumar & Ericka Corral-Yanez - Code Blue AI, is developing a plugin for devices to reduce stroke damage through early detection and rapid response.
Christina Miranda & Amanda Moreno - Body Empowerment Project is a nonprofit addressing eating disorder prevention among underserved adolescents through a near-peer mentorship model.
Paul Kramer - Institute for Youth in Policy (YIP) is building America’s largest, national network of young innovators - regardless of party affiliation - for cross-sector civic change.
Maria Tiu, Charis Turner, Shaista Afzhal, & Amritpal Singh - Prime Time is a near-peer program started by UCSF medical students to help fill physician shortages in Central California.
Danielle Boyer - In 2019 , Ojibwe (Sault Tribe) The STEAM Connection is a youth-led charity that has reached 800,000+ children – including tribal youth – with technical education.
Rea Savla & Vishesh Mehta - Zor addresses rural India’s electricity challenges with a battery sharing network, allowing farmers to rent multi-functional batteries whenever and wherever they need it.
Westly Prize 2024
Arpad Kovesdy & Mateo Abascal - Beamlink revolutionizes internet access worldwide at a 99% cost reduction with its lunchbox sized cell towers.
Ijeoma Uche & Mercy Oladipo - Birth ByUs, an innovative digital platform, bridges gaps in maternal health by addressing disparities faced by American Black women.
Jason Lin, Scott Hickmann, & Schwinn Saereesitthipitak - Mida transforms the way non-native English speakers communicate using OPen AI and an ensemble of learning language models.
Esin Gumustekin - Brain Exercise Initiative (BEI) delivers a unique approach to Alzheimer’s care, rooted in proven cognitive stimulation methods, that is executed across 80 universities internationally.
Gabriel Reyes - FLi Sci addresses the accessibility gap for low-income high school students of color aspiring to enter science graduate programs through a high-touch, two-year experience.
Madeline Hilliard & Madison Minear- Team Awareness Combating Overdose (TACO) is a national nonprofit dedicated to eliminating accidental overdose deaths among college students.
Karly Hou -Wave Learning Festival addresses systemic inequities in education through their live, no-cost,, peer-learning platform serving 20k+ students across 600 schools and organizations.
Saanvi Arora & Ayaan Moledina- Youth Power Project is reshaping the landscape of public policy engagement by empowering young people to a participate in local, state, and federal policymaking.
Westly Prize 2023
Noah Schecter & Miles McCain- Atlos is an open-source platform dedicated to collaborative visual investigation and purpose-built for media verification.
Hannah Wilen & Neil Bhatia- Capd Period, is the first menstrual cup that can be emptied without removing it, serving as the only sustainable period solution for women without access to clean water.
Amelia Eichel & Shiloh Sacks-Wonderfil’s refill stations tackle plastic pollution by allowing consumers to dispense and refill their daily-use items at a discounted price, replacing single-use plastic.
Mary Zhu- Develop for Good empowers the next generation of leaders in tech to commit their skills for social good, while accelerating the digital transformation of the nonprofit sector.
Joyce Lam - Kaimore places vulnerable communities on the path to economic security through programs in financial literacy, career development, and entrepreneurship training.
Navy McKee - Kai Pono Solutions offers the only stormwater filtration device that streamlines data to pinpoint sources of pollution for each individual storm drain.
Austin Martin- Rhymes with Reason is an education technology company enabling vocabulary acquisition, literacy skill development, and education equity through popular music and culture.
Chris Wang & Vikram Sreedhar - Shimmer is changing the game in ADHD support with the first ever ‘bite-sized’ ADHD coaching platform that is 5-10X more affordable than alternatives.
Westly Prize 2022
Sierra Fan & Natasha Allen – Illu offers tangible energy solutions to thousands in rural communities internationally through their tech software startup.
Lauren Yen & Laura Roed – Frontida Records aims to ensure custom digital health records may be accessed by medical professionals online across several countries.
Ariel Koran & Sofia Ondina-Aria – Respond Crisis Translation created the country’s first rapid-response language collective.
Aris Reyes – American Trans Resource Hub A resource hub providing transgendered individuals the comfort and stability they seek during their social, medical, or legal transitions.
Audrey Wisch & Alec Katz – Curious Cardinals A virtual platform designed for K-12 students to discover and pursue personal passions with the guidance of college mentors.
Abdulhamid Haidar – Darsel A digital platform supplementing K-12 instruction in developing and resource-constrained countries that is accessible via social media, WhatsApp, and SMS.
Ahmad Elhaija – International Collegiate Health Initiative A mobile clinic and telemedicine initiative expanding needed primary and preventative services for uninsured and underinsured populations.
Candice Delamarre & Armelle Coutant – Kit Switch A building component-kit that assists in converting vacant commercial buildings and other small dwellings into livable apartments.
Westly Prize 2021
James Kanoff & Aidan Reilly – Farmlink Project exists so no good food goes to waste while families go hungry - connecting farmers, transporters, and communities to deliver fresh produce.
Leslie Vasquez, Michael Piña, Khatia Osuna, and Yadira Hernandez-Figueroa – Central Valley Scholars is a college mentoring and scholarship non-profit supporting underrepresented students.
Nathan Mallipeddi – Stuttering Scholarship Alliance pays for speech therapy and connects children with more comprehensive community support.
Michael Cesar & Rhys Richmond - Duet connects donors, beneficiaries, and local stores in beneficiaries’ communities to change the way we donate by enabling impactful aid.
Devshi Mehrotra & Leslie Jones-Dove - JusticeText expedites the review of body camera footage, interrogations, and more to produce fairer criminal justice outcomes.
Anna Casalme - Novelly Creates youth-driven spaces, online and in-person, for courageous civic-minded conversations.
Riese Wismer & Kristein Farr - Tyme for Survivors Building the first survivor-focused reporting platform that redesigns the Title IX process for both survivors and universities.
Ton Hua & Belinda Mo - VivaTranslate expands reach and communication between organizations and their non-English-speaking clients via user-friendly SMS texting.
Westly Prize 2020
Bailey Farren & Noah Wu – Perimeter is a real-time disaster visualization platform to provide citizens and first responders with information they need to make decisions during an emergency.
Connie Lui – Project Invent is a nonprofit empowering high school students nationwide to invent technologies that make a difference.
Georgia Messinger & Ari Sokolov – Trill Project is an anonymous and safe social network that fosters tight-knit communities built upon support for young people in crisis.
Ananya Sridhar – Neptune Project uses big data to pinpoint places at potential highest risk for lead contamination, helping bring safe water to all children effectively and efficiently.
Annie Lu & David Lu – H2Ok Innovations empowers communities with the cost-saving information for sustainable access to clean water through machine learning and IoT.
Paige Balcom, Juliana Mora-Cabrera, Peter Okwoko – Takata Plastics is locally transforming plastic waste in Uganda into quality, affordable construction materials and creating jobs.
Tiphaine Boyer & Eric Boucher – Ovio offers social impact organizations free and maintainable software development through code donations to help solve the most pressing problems in the world.
Vanessa Gill & Amy Wu – Social Cipher creates role-playing video games that give neurodiverse players a safe space to practice social situations; and promotes self-advocacy.
Westly Prize 2019
Atif Javed, Aziz Alghaunaim – Tarjimly improves the lives of refugees and efficiency of humanitarian services by eliminating language barriers.
Dante Alvarado-Leon, Itzel Martinez – Latinas Engineering Leadership Program (LELP) is empowering the next generation of Computer Science Latina Leaders across California.
Sam Gorman, Jerry Registre, Julie Chen, Sravya Alla – Peerlift connects high school students to scholarship opportunities via a platform that enables donors to make micro-scholarships.
Annie Marggraff– Step Ahead is a national community network of running teams for children with autism and their siblings.
Nihal Satyadev – Youth Movement Against Alzheimers is a non-profit comprised of young individuals committed to changing the perception of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Dayo Adewole, Michael Wong, Tiffany Wong – InstaHub eliminates the need for large rewiring projects, while maintaining sensors and analytics which turn on/off when a room is occupied or vacated.
Jean Guo – Konexio advances socio-economic inclusion among the most vulnerable populations, notably refugees and migrants.
Soraya Fouladi – Jara, Inc. provides emergency education to impoverished and disaster-affected communities worldwide through the Jara Unit, a personal device that can be used without internet.
Westly Prize 2018
Kana Hammon –YCore catalyzes the next generation of social impact by equipping young professionals with the tools to impact their communities – for the rest of their lives.
Kevin Madrigal–Farming Hope strengthens community and grows opportunity by providing homeless people with transitional jobs in gardening and cooking.
Kartik Sawhney– NextBillion.org is a mentorship program for students with disabilities interested in tech, connecting them to industry professionals, job opportunities, and resources.
Miranda Wang – BioCellection is an innovative thermochemical process that can turn the 92% of unrecyclable plastic waste that ends up in landfills into sustainable material.
Ben Alemu –SENDforC National network of student mentors designing high-impact educational service programs and entrepreneurial initiatives for underserved schools.
Jack Amend –Web Neutral Project is a novel and comprehensive certification that calculates, reduces, and neutralizes the carbon footprint of websites.
Berk Coker –Teach FX is a personalized professional development tool for teachers that uses machine learning to provide them with daily metrics about the dialogue happening in their classroom.
Demetri Maxim –” A Novel, Non-Invasive Device for Detecting Chronic Organ Rejection” research informed a device to detect chronic kidney transplant rejection in 20 minutes.
Maya Sussman – Practica Mobile platform that helps non-native English speakers improve their spoken English, expanding their employment opportunities in the United States.
Helen Zou –FreeWill Free and intuitive online tools to help users make legal wills, aiming to raise $1 trillion for high-impact nonprofits by making giving through estate planning easier.
Westly Prize 2016
Andrew Logan – “Novel Treatment for Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HPE)” research produced a life-saving device for newborns in India and the developing world for HPE.
Anh-Thu Ho – Ladon Language Project enables multi-lingual, crowd-sourced, on-demand, telephone translation service to aid non-English speakers in educational, healthcare, and other settings.
Emmanuel (Manny) Escamilla – CodeX trains middle school youth in Modesto to code — engaging their families, and connecting them with technology businesses that can open doors.
Mingming Jiang – Releaf is an app enabling high school and college students to support their friends who are experiencing stress, using research-based techniques and one-way anonymity.
Roi Matalon – SLAM! is a network of passionate college student volunteers teaching after-school music programs in underserved middle and high schools in Los Angeles.
Samuel (Sam) Sinyangwe – Campaign Zero is a digital platform providing comprehensive policy solutions to achieve this vision, and give people the tools to use this information to take action.
Hilary Braseth – Ozéis a mobile application that collects financial and social transaction data at the point of sale for African entrepreneurs.
Marc Robert Wong – TeenTech SF is a teen-led community connecting teens with tech leaders through workshops on design thinking, coding, app creation, modeling, game design, & more.
Michael Xia – Answer.ky uses an artificial Intelligence-based grading system for teachers that reads human handwriting to automatically grade a wide variety of answers, including numbers, words, equations, and graphs.
Shannon Walker – EV Match is a crowd-sourced online platform for electric vehicle (EV) charging that allows individuals to rent out their private charging stations, helping communities share charging resources and support more EV use.
Tyler Van Herweg – Wakabi Boda Solutions is the “Uber” of rural Uganda, connecting villagers with motorcycle riders using an automated toll-free number on a standard cellphone, improving access to medical services and markets.
Ugwem Eneyo –Solstice eBox is a hardware and software platform that uses data to help Nigerian homes solve energy challenges by collecting data on previously unknown energy usage patterns.
Westly Prize 2015
Eli Erlick – Trans Student Educational Resources is a trans youth-led organization transforming the educational environment for transgender and gender nonconforming students through advocacy, empowerment, and policy change.
Khari Menelik – #IGottaMakeItAcademy provides access to online video lessons teaching inner city youth how to start a business and develop life skills.
Daquan Oliver – WeThrive is a mentoring program, matching college students with low-income youth to teach life skills through entrepreneurship and develop leadership.
Kimberly Souza – Hand Hero Innovative, provides low-cost hand splint that aids recovery for post-surgery burn patients with hand injuries in the developing world.
Lisa Curtis – Kuli Kuli has created nutrition bars and powders made from the superfood, moringa, to improve health in the US and support women farmers growing moringa in the developing world.
Ritankar Das – Dascena uses machine learning algorithms to save lives by predicting sepsis in hospital patients.
Amit Gandhi – Sensen offers portable, simple, and versatile data collection products using remote sensors to evaluate efficacy of international development innovations in the field.
Peter Gault – Quill enables free, open source, game-like online learning to help middle and high school students improve writing skills and logical reasoning.
Jacob Savage – Concrn Cloud-based social service network connects individuals suffering from homelessness, mental illness, and/or substance abuse with volunteer civilian responders.
Ben Simon – Imperfect Produce distributes and delivers of fresh but “ugly” produce to prevent food waste and make produce more affordable.
Rachel Sumekh – Swipe Out Hunger is a campus-based program combatting hunger by donating the value of unused college meal plan “swipes” to food-insecure people in the community.
Maya Varma – iBreathe Ultra-low-cost smartphone-based pulmonary function analyzer that measures lung function and assists in the diagnosis of respiratory illnesses.
Westly Prize 2014
Khalil Fuller – NBA Math Hoops Fast-paced basketball board game and mobile app empowering students with fundamental math skills through direct engagement with real statistics of their favorite NBA and WNBA players.
Grechen Huebner - Kodable Helping young children learn the building blocks of every programming language through a fun and intuitive game.
Lesley Marincola - Pay-As-You-Go Solar for Off-Grid Markets (Angaza Design) removes the upfront price barrier of solar-powered lights for off-grid families in emerging markets like East Africa.
Christine Su - PastureMap Mobile app helping cattle farmers manage their pastures sustainably, monitoring grazing and grass growth to prevent overgrazing of land.
Varun Arora - OpenCurriculu Web–based platform for K-12 teachers to find and remix curriculum from curated sets of Common Core teaching materials for their own classroom needs.
Shadi Barhoumi - CodeCamp Summer camp empowering youth from low-income backgrounds with programming skills to jumpstart potential careers in technology.
Paul Duan - Bayes Impact Fellowship program engaging top data scientists with nonprofit and civic organizations to help solve big social challenges.
Darren Hau - Dragonfly Systems Technology to reduce the cost of large-scale solar plants.
Karan Jain - tinyGive (Acquired by Give Lively) Enables anyone to donate to their favorite cause with simple social actions (e.g., via Twitter).
Joy Jin - New Visions of Tomorrow (NVoT) Services to aid blind and visually impaired (VI) youth in becoming more independent.
Aaron Lander - PopUpsters Enabling vendors to test their products, build a loyal customer base and avoid the upfront capital costs of starting a brick-and-mortar business.
Paola Santana - Matternet Creating the world’s next generation transportation system using networks of small autonomous flying vehicles (aka drones).
Noor Siddiqui - Remedy Software on Google Glass “Beam”, allows remote experts to see through the eyes of the physician and weigh in on a procedure, a treatment plan, or a diagnosis.
Charlie Stigler - Zaption (Acquired by Workday) Intuitive web app enabling teachers to quickly add quizzes, discussions, and slides to existing videos from YouTube or Vimeo.
James Ward - Homeless to Higher Ed Foundation Raising awareness about the barriers underprivileged youth face with regards to accessing higher education and providing them tools to complete their education.
Phil Weiner - UrbMat Guided Gardens guided gardens enable people in urban areas to grow their own food and flowers in small spaces.
Westly Prize 2013
Oz Hasbun - Medical Interpreter Education Program Revolutionizing volunteer medical interpreter services.
Akshay Madhani - MyHelpAlert Mobile app for personal safety.
Kiran Sridhar - Waste No Food Web-based “marketplace” matching surplus food with qualified charities working with the needy.
Jane Mitchell - Reset Foundation Empowering incarcerated young adults to succeed professionally and personally.
Chase Adam - Watsi crowdfunding platform for healthcare.
Grechen Huebner - Kodable game teaching the basics of programming to kids as young as 5.
Gary Kurek - Rollator Wheelchair Hybrid Manual or power-assisted walker / wheelchair for disabled users.
Ajay Ramesh - Summit Tech Help Student-driven, open-source website for peer-to-peer tech support.
David Rathmann-Bloch, 21st Century Chalkboard Project Educational video games for students in Haiti.
Westly Prize 2012
Eden Full - SunSaluter An intuitive, gravity-powered device that helps solar panels follow the sun, while providing clean water.
Tatiana Grossman - Spread the Words developed a Global Literacy Handheld, solar-powered digital projector that brings to life educational materials for children in the developing world.
Kiah Williams - SIRUM Online platform connecting the untapped surplus of drugs from health facilities and manufacturers with the needs of safety-net clinics.
Shilpa Yarlagadda - Club Academia “Education of the students, by the students and for the students” through website composed of over two hundred video tutorials on a variety of courses.
Zak Kukoff - Autism Ambassadors Peer-based curriculum empowering students with Autism to build friendships with other students.
Jessica Ladd - Callisto (formerly Sexual Health Innovations) Technology to empower people to make informed sexual health decisions.
Beth Schmidt - Wishbone Sends low-income high school students to after school and summer programs to pursue their passions.
Vineet Singal - Care Message (Formerly Anjna) Mobile solutions that engage and educate underserved patients to lead healthier lives.
Megan Winkelman - Project Not Alone Touch-screen health education modules to improve access to education about chronic diseases.