The 21st annual IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge held its first-ever hybrid award ceremony on Sunday, April 24th at the MIT Media Lab. The event celebrated the 2022 IDEAS Finalist Cohort, finalists from past years, and the many other IDEAS community members that make the program possible. The event was dedicated to the PKG Center co-founder, the late Dr. Shirley McBay, and the featured keynote speaker was Malia Lazu (view event recording here). While all teams are recipients of a $1,000 seed grant, the following awards were announced during the event:

Juried Grants (teams and MIT student lead)

• Akavis – $20,000 – Alberto Cuellar
• Birth by Us – $15,000 – Mercy Oladipo
• Vaiven – $10,000 – Ana Alvarez
• Grain Box – $7,500 – Mona Vijaykumar

Crowd Favorite Grants (teams and MIT student lead)

• Making Water Visible: Pune’s Water System – Pramada Jagtap
• Zahara for Education – Ilham Ali

— Rebecca Obounou and Savannah Hildebrant, PKG Center