June 3, 2016
The Voqal Fellowship is an investment in a new generation of social entrepreneurs. Fellows receive financial resources and mentoring to help bring an early stage idea to life. The Voqal Fellowship is an opportunity for young innovators to test assumptions, research target audiences and build strong business plans. As part of our efforts to further highlight these extraordinary individuals, we are starting a regular blog series. This week we take a look at 2016 Voqal Fellow, Marquis Cabrera.
Marquis is a tech entrepreneur pursuing a career in the health and human services field. He is passionate about technological social innovation. At 16 years old, he engineered a computer program that produced IDs used to increase school district security in Middletown, New York. At 24 years old, Marquis was the youngest to win the Massachusetts Innovator of the Year (Boston Globe) and Massachusetts Young Nonprofit Professional of the Year (MNN).
Marquis is the Founder and CEO of Foster Skills, a social enterprise supported by Microsoft, AOL, and State Farm that develops innovations intended to help state governments improve the child welfare system. He is also the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CTO of PhysioCare.io, an award-winning healthcare startup disrupting the $19B primary care industry.
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. As a result of his work in this area, Marquis recently had the opportunity to speak at the White House as part of a panel titled Big Data: Opportunities and Challenges in Child Welfare. You can find more information about Marquis and the rest of the 2016 Voqal Fellows on our new Voqal Fellows page.