Recent Winners
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: Raitagyana (2023)
Team of MIB students wins 2023 Fletcher D-Prize for social venture Raitagyana
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: Blesser Breakers (2022)
2022 winners Wabei Saboi, MIB’22, Ashira Pelt, F’23, and Daniel Kibet, MIB’23, created a new social venture ‘Blesser Breakers’ aimed to aimed at reducing the sexual exploitation of teenage girls in Zambia, by educating them avoid risky sexual behavior that leads to HIV, STD’s, and unwanted pregnancy. Ultimately, eradicating these outcomes raises a young Zambian girl’s chance out of poverty.
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: Resonance Lab (2020)
2020 winner Resonance Lab, created by Nitin Malik (F’20) and Mohit Saini (F’21), is a solar energy start-up focused on providing clean, reliable, and affordable energy to rural communities in India. Resonance Lab delivers innovative solar panels bundled with installation kits and is more portable and efficient than its traditional alternatives.
Read more about Resonance Lab here
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: The Now Exchange (2019)
2019 winner The Now Exchange, a nonprofit organization created by Farah Moment (F’20), provides female garment workers in Gazipur, Bangladesh with accessible healthcare. The initiative aims to use existing health clinics as a channel to reach garment workers — 80% of whom are women — with free services that override barriers to healthcare and choice. Momen’s project will also share knowledge about various family-planning options by training health clinic workers and distributing information directly to female factory workers.
Read more about The Now Exchange here
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: EDKASA (2018)
2018 winner EDKASA, an educational technology venture co-founded by Sohail Ali, F’19, along with Bakhtawar Ali, F’19, leverage the rapid speed of internet penetration in Pakistan to make rock star teachers accessible for secondary education. In a country where more than half of the 15 million secondary school students do not graduate, EDKASA is using a live, virtual learning platform of connected classrooms owned and operated by “Edupreneurs” to distribute its “live teaching web-streams” to students for a low monthly cost. EDKASA won $20,000 in cash along with over $10,000 in in-kind donations to pilot their model this Summer 2018.
Hear the EDKASA story from Sohail and Bakhtawar
Student Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: ComeOnGirls (2017)
2017 Winner ComeOnGirls, a sponsorship platform for girls education founded by Menghan Li, F’18, will conduct a summer 2017 pilot in Western China. ComeOnGirls works to alleviate poverty by improving women’s education, digitally matching girls with donors. After China, Li hopes to take the nonprofit to other markets, such as Brazil and India.
Alumni Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: Kumwe Logistics (2016)
2016 Winners Kumwe Logistics, co-founded by Charles Dokmo, F’14, received $15,000 to help alleviate poverty by developing the future of African freight. A freight brokerage company lowering the cost of transportation in East Africa, Kumwe uses an online marketplace to connect shippers and truck owners—and gives the truck owners smartphones to make it happen. The company is up and running in Rwanda with over 50,000 tons moved, helping to solve longstanding post-harvest challenges in the agricultural sector
Alumni Winners of Fletcher D-Prize: SponsorHer! (2015)
Viola Csordas (F ’09) and Maria Zandt launched SponsorHer!, a unique social fundraising platform to help address the glaring gap in girls’ education in Ethiopia. By matching individual and corporate sponsors with bright and needy girls who aspire to receive a high school education through a scholarship program, SponsorHer! eliminates the marriage or work trap for young girls and provides the highest returns to society by investing in their future. SponsorHer! is the first Fletcher Alumni team to win the prize, receiving $5,000 in seed funding to start their pilot.
Winners of the Inaugural Fletcher D- Prize competition: Clair de Lune (2014)
Andrew Lala (F ’14) and Tommy Galloway (F ’14), winners of the inaugural Fletcher D-Prize, received $15,000 to help them pilot their Clair de Lune – Solar Light Distributor platform. The platform uses existing bus infrastructure and cultural remittance practices to reach the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa.In the summer of 2014, Andrew and Tommy brought this proven poverty solution to 400 families in Burkina Faso with an aim to scale to over 100,000 families in two years.
D-Prize has run prior competitions with a similar focus. Below are summaries of past D-Prize winners, and you can read more about the most recent global D-Prize competition.