Do Good Challenge Teams Split $20K in Prizes

Pupil groups working to forestall opioid overdoses and shield the psychological well being of health-care staff every took the $5,000 first-place prize within the tenth annual do Good Problem final night time.

The Problem, held in particular person for the primary time in three years at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Heart, celebrated Terps making a social influence, together with shows from this yr’s six finalist groups and cameos from alum members from the previous decade.

Combating Overdoses in Rural Areas (CORA), based at UMD, now has eight chapters and 100-plus members nationwide offering opioid training, assets and harm-reduction help. It was the victor amongst project-track groups, which search to maximise influence for a trigger or current group via volunteering, fundraising and advocacy.

Vitalize is constructing a clinician-centric app and digital dashboard for hospital management to help their workers’ psychological well being, together with a library of 100+ mindfulness meditations addressing the distinctive challenges of working in well being care. It received within the venture-track class for social enterprises that sort out necessary societal challenges with revolutionary enterprise fashions.

Kesem at College of Maryland was awarded the $2,500 second prize on the undertaking monitor and the $2,500 Neilom Basis Viewers Selection Award. It gives care packages, month-to-month calls and extra to kids ages 6-18 who’ve been impacted by most cancers within the DMV and hosts a free weeklong summer season camp. So far, pupil volunteers have raised $300,000 and supported 120 distinctive campers, with plans to host 100 this summer season.

“Terps have discovered some ways to make a distinction, from fundraising and advocacy to innovation,” college President Darryll J. Pines mentioned to the viewers. “These college students are dreaming up the fearless concepts that can transfer us fearlessly ahead. Their creativeness, motivation and willpower are examples to all of us on learn how to pursue excellence and advance the general public good.”

Different finalists had been North Star Creations, which affords video games and different merchandise to assist preschoolers develop emotional intelligence ($2,500 second prize, enterprise monitor); Get Ovary It, which advocates for accessible and reasonably priced menstrual well being merchandise, companies and training ($1,000 third prize, undertaking monitor); and TeleShadowing, a digital shadowing program for pre-health college students ($1,000 third prize, enterprise monitor).

The Venture judges included Michelle Gilliard, director, U.S. Training and Workforce Division at FHI 360; Kahlil Kettering M.P.M. ‘15, Bezos Earth Fund program director, the Nature Conservancy; and Paul Monteiro ‘02, chief of workers and assistant vice chairman of exterior affairs at Howard College.

“It isn’t straightforward being up right here,” Kettering informed the scholars. “It’s scary, it’s intimidating, however it’s a robust expertise. And I assure you that it doesn’t matter what occurs tonight, you’ll take the teachings from this expertise with you into your skilled life, and it’s gonna make you a greater particular person and a greater skilled.”

The Enterprise monitor judges had been Chike Aguh, 2020 Tech and Human Rights Fellow, Harvard Carr Heart, and chief innovation officer, U.S. Division of Labor; Chad Bolick, govt director, head of philanthropy administration, Morgan Stanley Non-public Wealth Administration; and Kirsten Craft, MBA/M.P.P. ‘17, president of innovation, technique and operations, Potomac Debate Academy.

After making “lightning pitches” to the viewers, Lean on Me, an emotional help textual content line for faculty college students, and Sport Changers New York, a nonprofit that donates gently used sports activities gear to underserved youth, took dwelling the $750 and $500 Showcase Viewers Selection Awards, respectively.

This yr’s Problem finals was sponsored by Morgan Stanley Non-public Wealth Administration, The Rothschild Foundations, the Richard E. and Nancy P. Marriott Basis, the UMD Heart for Engineering Ideas Growth, the Neilom Basis and Freed Images.

See “the place are they now” tales from former Do Good Problem rivals to mark the tenth anniversary of the occasion.