Press Releases
University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and the Milken Family Foundation Announce 2014 Education Business Plan Competition Finalists and $140,000 in Prize Funding
Share your idea. Change the world.
April 14, 2014
The University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE) and the Milken Family Foundation have announced 12 finalists for the 2014 Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition (EBPC). Considered one of the most prestigious and well-funded education business plan competitions around, the EBPC has earned a name for itself by attracting innovative ideas from around the world and spotting winning education innovations early on in their growth.
Competition finalists will be flown to Philadelphia’s Penn campus on May 13-14 to pitch their ventures to a crowd of investors, researchers, entrepreneurs and practitioners. In addition to cash prizes, select competitors will also be invited to join the Education Design Studio, Inc. (EDSi), a $2.1 million hybrid incubator and seed fund built specifically for education ventures, that was launched in fall 2013 in collaboration with Penn GSE.
The 2014 EBPC Finalists, selected through a crowd-sourced judging process and reviewed by competition sponsors are:
- Branching Minds, New York, NY
- eduCanon, Galesville, MD
- Open Assembly, New York, NY
- Osmosis, Philadelphia, PA
- Pear Deck, Iowa City, IA
- ProfessorWord, Philadelphia, PA
- Scholly, Philadelphia, PA
- SmartestK12, Los Angeles, CA
- SmartyPAL Inc., Philadelphia, PA
- Totus Power, San Francisco, CA
- UClass, San Francisco, CA
- Ubongo, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
For more information go to: http://nestcentral.org.
Two new prizes also have been announced, and will be awarded to business plans aimed at changing the paradigm around global learning. TSL Education will be offering the TSL Borderless Education Teacher Prize for $10,000, and Halloran Philanthropies will offer the Halloran Philanthropies Borderless Education Social Impact Prize for $5,000 – bringing competition funding to $140,000. The EBPC features eight separate prizes in categories ranging from Open Educational Resources (OER), to innovation in online education, to special education and at-risk students as well as the opportunity to connect with top investors and researchers in the field of educational innovation.
- The Milken Family Foundation: First Prize ($25,000), Second Prize ($15,000)
- The American Public University System Prize for Innovation in Online Education ($25,000)
- The Educational Services of America Prize for Innovation in the fields of Special Education and At-Risk Students ($20,000)
- The K12 Online Learning Prize for Innovation in Technology for Grades K Through Twelve ($25,000)
- The McGraw-Hill Education Prize for Open Educational Resources ($15,000)
The Milken Family Foundation was established by Lowell and Michael Milken in 1982 with the mission to discover and advance inventive and effective ways of helping people help themselves and those around them lead productive and satisfying lives. The Foundation advances this mission principally through the various programs it initiates and carries out in the areas of education and medical research.
Penn GSE is one of the nation’s premier research education schools. No other education school enjoys a university environment as supportive of practical knowledge-building as the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania. The School is notably entrepreneurial, launching innovative degree programs for practicing professionals and unique partnerships with local educators, and the first-ever business plan competition devoted exclusively to educational products and programs. For further information about Penn GSE, please visit www.gse.upenn.edu/, or check out Facebook at MilkenPennEBPC; Twitter: NESTCentral; hashtag #MilkenPennGSE.
Kat Stein, Exec. Director of Communications, Penn GSE
(215) 898-9642
katstein@gse.upenn.edu