Awardees
Awardees
The 2021 Yass Prize and STOP Awards Recipients
Discovery Center Springfield
Meet the 2021 Yass Prize Winner
The pandemic didn’t stop our families, scholars and educators from learning, growing and thriving.
The special sauce of our schools is tutoring.
We support our students and their ability to reach their full human potential through the use of tutoring.
This group of innovators has the opportunity to show the world what is possible for kids, what doesn't yet exist for so many children who deserve the opportunity to be entrepreneurs and to shine as out of the box thinkers.
This group of innovators has the opportunity to show the world what is possible for kids, what doesn't yet exist for so many children who deserve the opportunity to be entrepreneurs and to shine as out of the box thinkers.
Entrepreneurs are the engine of the innovation economy.
The work this remarkable group has accomplished is not only inspirational but can be transformative for millions more students.
The real source of wealth in society is the human mind, not material things, because with the human mind, great wealth can be created.
Whether paying for private education or paying for public education as a taxpayer, everyone pays.
That was a great perspective shift.
We realized long ago that there’s a lot of money in the system, and it’s just not directed to the children.
We may not agree on much of anything, but one thing that is a uniting force that we all agree on is that education opens doors, it’s the great equalizer.
When you are trying to advance and think beyond the status quo, this can be a lonely place, because our systems are structured to do the same thing.
It is important to surround yourself with like-minded individuals who foster innovation.
The challenge in education is the stakes are so high.
It's one thing to have a product fail but failure to educate children has enormous consequences. One way to address this challenge is to think about innovation in a "fail fast" model where you learn very quickly what's working and what's not so you can iterate and improve quickly.
Success happens after many pivots and changes.
Too often, we look for success by analyzing an education system, rather than analyzing the success of the actual learners within the system.
That’s why we need more project-based and problem-based learning models.
Silicon Valley is a mindset. It is like the Education Revolution that we are seeing. The mindset of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Can we have an educational Silicon Valley?
It is now our job to unlock others' potential…
so that we can continue to transform education and give the future generation the true knowledge they will need to continue the work we have all started.
I cannot express how I am growing professionally.
As a leader, we always pour out. The Yass Prize Accelerator has been refreshing to say the least. I'm walking away confident that we are moving in the right direction with fresh ideas.
We are so inspired by the STOP Award participants, semi-finalists, and the courage, innovation and leadership of educators from across the country who have amplified the application of their brilliance to make the lives of their students better as they faced the daunting challenges of the pandemic.
The concept of being innovative with a touch of entrepreneurial thinking seems to be a recipe for the next level work for me as a leader and for our district's continued growth and viability.
We must remind our parents that they are the ones who pay for their child's education through their tax dollars and therefore have as much right to be at the table planning their child's educational roadmap as anyone else.
Entrepreneurs are people who teach us about needs we don’t know we need.
This is the fundamental basis of what we are doing.
I hope you all think about the fact that the impact you are having, you will never even know how widespread it is.
That’s the beauty of education, you impact lives in such a deep way.
The fact that education has become partisan is upsetting, and I just hope that this award will encourage more states to view this as a bipartisan issue.
I tore up my first draft of a speech and went back to the drawing board.
I realized that the for-profit, business plan pitch leaves out the most compelling part of a pitch: the story!!!
The relationships kids develop at the Boys & Girls Clubs with their peers and the staff have a positive impact on their lives.
Kids develop a sense of belonging, usefulness and competence. They get to find their strengths and their passions. Every child should have that opportunity.
I'm deeply humbled and grateful to be part of this group.
The last month has been a tremendous experience and I'm so inspired and motivated by the amazing work this group is doing. Collectively, we’re working towards a real-world goal and it’s leaving me empowered and motivated to apply what we learn.
These sessions have become an oasis of calm and zen in my day, where I can turn off Slack and my emails...and just focus on learning from experts and basking in the energy of this community.
There are so many heroes who responded to the Covid crisis in the education sector.
You were focused on kids and families. You did what you had to do and we are so grateful for that. We created this award to honor your work and we knew if we built it you would come.
No training and protocol can prepare you for entrepreneurship. Rather, we must experience it and do the hard work.
Encouraging in some ways and difficult in others.
It's about engaging families.
It's helping families step into their power — making sure that the voices of families are really front and center in guiding solutions.
Too often, we see massive amounts of funding going towards failing models or failing schools, simply because administrators are unable to recognize a sunk cost fallacy.
Humbled to be considered in such great company.
We hope to create a shift in the education scene that really focuses on how to orient schools to the lived outcomes of our kids in the communities that they live in. Here's to abundance & great things for all of our kids.
What has been created here at the accelerator is truly incredible.
We may never know how pivotal this really is for education in America right here, right now. This group of people will work together to force real change permissionlessly.
What is good for families is good for the school because families want great schools.
There was a time that I wouldn't even look at other programs because I was concerned I wouldn't be able to continue to be original in my own program.
It is ok to be inspired by other people doing something well and putting our own spin on it.
We often jump to the what, without thinking with the community about the why.
Investing is the approach of doing well and doing good.
We want to generate returns and generate impact.
If you get to the accelerator after the application process, go in knowing you already won.
The fact that you are now with a group of your peers you really get to see how world class the education profession is.
You guys are heroes as far as I’m concerned.
The educators, the innovators, who got our kids through the pandemic, used creative ways to make sure they were learning, they were thriving, at a time when we were all facing so many challenges.
The chance to be part of this group is a big gust of wind in the sails of New Way Global.
Being in this group has filled me with renewed hope and determination to push forward on big dreams for great education for the least served in our community and beyond.
Since the start of the Yass Prize, we heard the message to "stop" or slow down the day-to-day and give yourself permission to step away.
I see my team rising to the challenge, running the school effectively, and together we are envisioning the future.
Conforming is something we are trained to do pretty early on.
We grow up trying so hard to fit in. Learning to be uniquely ourselves as we innovate is a part of this process.
Unfortunately, the bureaucracy that’s behind the school system is more interested in perpetuating jobs and keeping the system in place, rather than giving children the freedom they deserve.
We found a 1.8 million dollar property that would be perfect for our school. The old me...'we could never get that'...
the new me...Why NOT us? Why not Soar! Y'all changing mindsets is EVERYTHING!
Every story has a beginning, middle and end.
Seeing the front and back cover may not even give you a full view of what wonders may come inside, so it’s our role to pitch those nuances that no one sees just by looking at the outside.
A takeaway about The Yass Prize - what other accelerator actually helps prepare participants for the pitch?
This is awesome and the skills are so transferable to the fundraising grind.
Thinking "big" is often about identifying and solving real problems today, but striving to contribute to the growing body of knowledge, and laying the foundation for future leaders to have big breakthroughs.
It's not the university someone graduated from or the degree they hold.
Do they have the resilience and perseverance? Do they have grit? It's the most important skill.
I learned that sometimes you have to be the villain in the script.
As a disrupter we may be the villains in someone's blog, post, editorial, tweet, etc. but if we expose the heroes' (students) success in the process it is well worth being the villain and disrupting the norm!
You are in a moment in history that we have never seen before.
Any of us with a disruptive idea have a shot at trying to prove something.
The concepts of taking chances and not being afraid to fail all resonated with me and goes against the grain of what I have always practiced and accepted as what education is all about from a traditional lens.
If the entrepreneur's mindset embraces failure as learning and development, then we must hold our ideas "loosely", because there is a good chance we are wrong.
Schools who do not view parents as customers lose children.
The Yass Prize is more than a competition to me. Yes, we want to win. However, we are winning in so many aspects. Knowledge is power!
I am so grateful to be a part of such an extraordinary group.
It's important to give yourself space from the work to allow room for deep reflection for continuous improvement.
When you are so deeply in the work, you can get into a routine/habit, [and] not create the space [to] allow creativity to flow.
We really need to work on the why. Not just with our teams, but with all those we work with and around.
Especially the families in the communities we serve.
The myth that parents of color do not care about the educational well-being of their children is just that, a myth.
Many of our Black parents want what's best for their children and believe they are not being heard and dismissed.
I am really starting to feel that family vibe that the other Yass Prize winners spoke about.
I love this community that is starting to form and I'm so grateful to be a part of it.
We see the Pulitzer prizes, we see the MacArthur Genius Grants, we see the Pritzker prize for architecture.
But for the one field that drives everything, education, there is no definitive prize. The Yass Prize has filled that vacuum -- it's more than just the money. It's about spurring ideas, it's about spurring innovation. We are very very proud to be a part of it.
Remember, you are doing the work of civilization.
You are planting the seeds of a better world, despite any bad news, you’re doing great things.
I am still processing the magnitude of this experience and so grateful for meeting each and everyone of you.
I look forward to continuing our transformative work in our communities and together.
