Wondering What the Changemakers Have Been Doing?

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It’s been a while since we heard about Changemaker Institute on the blog… Want to know what they’ve been up to?

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Well, you can find out exactly that at the 2015 Changemaker Institute Summit and Pitch Presentations on Tuesday April 15th from 6-8 PM in Kendall Cram. This event will serve as the culminating celebration of their work in the incubator, as well as a venue for Changemaker Institute alumni, mentors, and members of the New Orleans community to give their feedback, suggestions, and support to this new legion of aspiring social innovators. Better yet, there will be good conversation and free food!

All are welcome, but come ready to listen and give feedback to the Changemakers. The list of current participants include:

  • The ACT Prep Program, founded by Jessica Tran and Rachel Budd, will offer free test preparation to underserved students in New Orleans. It will start by establishing a pilot program at a local high school.
  • Digital Storytelling, founded by Jocelyn Horner, seeks to create a youth-led, small-scale, intensive digital storytelling (DST) program designed to train a group of New Orleans teens to become storytelling facilitators.
  • New Orleans first Family Law Facilitators Office, founded by Josephine Vanderhorst, would offer free legal advice and brief services to individuals who do not have, and cannot afford, an attorney specifically focusing on family services.
  • Geaux to Market, founded by Evan Kollath, will be a farmer’s market that will bring produce vendors to Tulane’s campus, ensuring student access to healthy and sustainable produce while also creating a new and desirable market for produce vendors.
  • For citizens that have trouble researching or finding time to obtain voting information, The Rational Voter Project is a non-partisan and convenient web-based political quiz that matches voters to candidates based on issue preference and importance; founded by Pedro Benitez, Peter Kovach, Allen Moret, Michael Olie, and Luke Zivaudais.
  • The Initiative by Physicians and Scientists (TIPS) for Health:
    (TIPS), founded by Vironka Davis, Emma Lisec, and Pegah Kannar, seeks to promote and encourage health education, disease prevention, and access to basic healthcare through the establishment, operation, and support of current healthcare organizations targeting low-income communities and through the circulation of a newsletter that will increase awareness for community health projects.
  • The creation of an intercultural language tool, founded by Mingling Huang, would facilitate webcam conversations between Chinese students seeking to practice English and elderly American Citizens, bridging cultural gaps while also giving Chinese students opportunities to increase English fluency.
  • Texts for Change, founded by Lauren Astrachan and Ryan Winemiller, aims to reduce student debt associated with purchasing college textbooks by creating a Tulane-exclusive website that encourages safe and fairly-priced textbook transactions between students.
  • uPad, founded by Jason Ryans and Ashwin Sivakumar, aims to create and mass-produce an affordable virus diagnostic tool that can perform rapid tests for common viruses in resource-limited settings.

For more information, check out http://www.changemakerinstitute.com or contact Jennifer McNulty via email to jmcnulty@tulane.edu or by phone at 504-247-1963. We also have a Facebook event!