2018 Awardees

See the Impact Design Immersion Fellowship awardees for 2018.

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IDIF Awardee Riah Forbes

Riah Forbes

Originally from India, Riah moved to the United States to study economics, international relations, and management science and engineering at Stanford. She worked in partnership development and operations on early products at Google. Committed to using technology for social impact, she led India initiatives for Endless Computers, a social enterprise, and later worked in impact investing at Omidyar Network. In 2019, Riah will earn an MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MPA-ID degree from the Harvard Kennedy School.

IDIF Focus

Riah is working to enable more equity and inclusion within the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. She helps entrepreneurs successfully launch and scale ventures, creating jobs and directly addressing the needs of low-income communities in India.

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IDIF Awardee Chris Grant

Chris Grant

Chris, Stanford MBA ’19, is a social entrepreneur working at the intersection of financial services, technology, and policy. Prior to business school, Chris was an associate at Promontory Financial Group, where he advised financial services clients on cybersecurity and regulatory matters, and he was an early employee at Alice Financial, a fintech company. At Stanford, Chris served as director of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Impact Fund’s fintech deal team and interned at Radicle Impact Partners, a venture investment fund based in Oakland, California.

IDIF Focus: Grantbridge

Grantbridge is a technology company transforming the community development finance ecosystem. Grantbridge’s technology delivers speed, efficiency, and transparency to banks, so they can serve all communities — including low-and-moderate income areas — and safely comply with the Community Reinvestment Act rules and regulations.

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Anna Pinol

Originally from Barcelona, Anna started her entrepreneurial career at Akamon Entertainment. She was also one of the early employees at Amazon Marketplace in Spain, where she worked in business development and led initiatives like Black Friday and Prime Day. Her passion for logistics started during her time at Fulfillment by Amazon, where she was responsible for advancing large-scale fulfillment solutions for sellers who wished to sell globally. There she understood the need for an easier access to products worldwide.

IDIF Focus: MylaBox

MylaBox is a cross-border Instacart looking to close the selection and price gaps between the United States and Latin American countries. It is building a massively decentralized fulfillment network using people’s homes to store and deliver products in underserved communities. MylaBox employs women entrepreneurs from these communities; the women receive boxes of inventory in their homes, pick and pack customer orders, and deliver them to customers.

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IDIF Awardee Patrick Robinson

Patrick Robinson

Patrick is a Tillman Scholar who served as an attorney in the U.S. Army prior to coming to Stanford Graduate School of Business. He returned to school focused on the intersection of technology and criminal justice reform. Building on his experience as a federal prosecutor and defense counsel, Patrick seeks to build empathy in the criminal justice system. He aspires to use technology and data to reframe the narrative of justice from past wrongs to the courage, determination, and resilience to overcome.

IDIF Focus: Invicted

Invicted is developing impact-scaling data management software for nonprofit organizations that improves client engagement, identifies leading indicators of client success, and operationalizes data to support clients in accessing economic opportunities.

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Kate Wharton, IDIF Awardee

Kate Wharton

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IDIF Awardee Joan Gass

Joan Gass

Kate Wharton and Joan Gass

Kate, MBA ‘19, has a deep interest in economic development and entrepreneurship, particularly in regions affected by conflict and fragility. She began her career in public sector consulting at Deloitte, focusing on energy and infrastructure in emerging markets and cofounding a global social innovation fellowship. Most recently, she was based in Turkey as COO of a humanitarian technology startup. Kate holds a BS in economics and international affairs from Georgia Tech and is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio.

In June 2019, Joan will graduate as a dual degree student from the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA-ID) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MBA). Prior to starting graduate school, Joan was a founding team member of Bain & Company’s Nigeria office. Joan combines a passion for high-impact ideas with a sharp ability to execute. Joan is originally from Dallas, Texas.

IDIF Focus

Joan and Kate spent ten weeks in Delhi, India, exploring opportunities around data innovation to improve public service delivery and market access for low-income communities in emerging markets. They were particularly interested in leveraging advances in artificial intelligence for inclusive growth. The team’s user research spanned government officials, technology entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and some of the country’s largest philanthropic organizations, including a pilot program with the World Bank.

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IDIF Awardee Karin Underwood

Karin Underwood

Karin has led change in global health and health technology. She worked in Kenya for One Acre Fund, creating a health insurance product to protect 100,000 farmers from shocks, and worked to build Myanmar’s first mobile app for pregnant mothers. Prior to her three years abroad, she was the third employee and operations manager for mProve Health, helping grow the company’s size by three times in two years. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in biology and public health.

IDIF Focus: CoachMe

Four million women struggle to manage heart disease with the limited options provided by Medicaid, contributing to shorter life expectancy and $20 billion in annual costs. CoachMe supports women with heart disease to improve their health. Peer health coaches help women achieve lifestyle goals, overcome behavioral health barriers, and navigate resources. CoachMe combines the power of human interaction with mobile technology to reach five times as many patients as a traditional model.