January 19, 2016
Six tech-savvy entrepreneurs have been accepted into the third cohort of the Voqal Fellowship, which provides the resources and mentoring needed to bring early-stage ideas to life.
Voqal Fund Program Officer Leah Pryor-Lease said the current round of the fellowship program, which was launched in 2012, received the most applicants to date, with a wide variety of unique ideas to address social inequity.
“We are excited about the broad scope of projects submitted this year and look forward to helping the next class of Voqal Fellows launch their big ideas for social change,” Pryor-Lease said.
Joining a growing legacy of Voqal Fellows making a difference in the world are the following members of the 2016 class:
Marquis Cabrera
Cabrera’s project, RateMyFosterHome.com, is a web-based tool for state governments—specifically, social workers and their supervisors—to enhance and support the foster-care process.
Andrea Hart
Hart’s City Bureau’s Community Data Project creates a workspace/pipeline for south and west side Chicago residents to identify and compile new data sets to conduct civic investigations.
Bhavik Lathia
Lathia’s project, the Cellphone-First Citizen Mobilization Tool, allows campaigners to easily mobilize citizens on their cellphones in order to sign petitions, contact decision makers and take action.
Hlee Lee-Kron
Lee-Kron’s project, Mix It Up:Diversity in the Workplace, is a collection of web tools that present real-life experiences in order to provide an in-depth understanding of what people of color face on a daily basis.
Eric Shih
Shih’s project, Spendrise, is a platform for launching online petitions wherever people spend money using an all-or-nothing crowdfunding engine and user interface.
Laurel Wamsley
Wamsley’s project, How to Save Your Own City, is a podcast that will empower citizens to discover and share what they can do to create the cities they want to live in.
The Voqal Fellowship seeks to further progressive, social justice-oriented causes by investing in a new generation of social entrepreneurs, and is part of Voqal’s overall efforts to build an educated, empowered and engaged public. Read more about the Voqal Fellowship.