HGSE Admissions Blog

There are so many ways HGSE students are Learning to Change the World, including through innovation and entrepreneurship. We asked three of our HGSE students to share more about their entrepreneurial ventures, and how their time in the classroom has shaped their work.

Evolving Thinkers: Muskkaan Bafnaa

My path to educational entrepreneurship has been anything but conventional. Trained as an architect, I never imagined that I would find myself deeply immersed in the world of education. However, the pandemic brought me closer to my mother’s preschool, The Evolvers Nest Preschool , where I observed firsthand the challenges that children and parents were facing. The need for holistic, play-based learning that nurtured social-emotional skills, resilience, and cognitive agility became apparent. This realization led me to create Evolving Thinkers—an afterschool program designed to foster these essential skills in young learners through scaffolded games and activities.

Evolving Thinkers started as a small afterschool program in India, focusing on play-based learning to develop children’s cognitive, social, and emotional skills. Before coming to HGSE, we had over 300 students enrolled full-time, and I was primarily focused on delivering the curriculum and ensuring its impact. However, my time at HGSE has transformed Evolving Thinkers into a scalable, structured venture.

Through my coursework, I developed my first-ever pitch deck and learned how to articulate my vision effectively in 1-minute, 3-minute, and 15-minute pitches. These skills were put to the test when I participated in the Harvard x MIT Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Pitch Event, where I won and secured pro bono legal services to help establish my firm in the U.S. This experience reinforced the importance of clearly communicating the value of my venture and opened doors to expansion beyond India.

Now, Evolving Thinkers is evolving into a franchise model, with plans to scale nationally and internationally. I have refined the curriculum, developed an assessment framework, and leveraged my learnings from HGSE to make the business model more sustainable and impactful.

At HGSE, my entrepreneurial journey has been shaped by incredible classes and resources. T565: Entrepreneurship in the Education Marketplace by Prof. Angela Jackson has been particularly instrumental, providing practical frameworks to refine my business model, understand scalability, and think critically about impact measurement. This course kept me accountable for weekly progress on my venture as well as gave me helpful insights towards navigating life as an entrepreneur through case studies. It was extremely hands on and I would highly recommend it.

The Harvard ecosystem has been invaluable in shaping my entrepreneurial experience. As a member of the Harvard Innovation Labs, I’ve had access to mentorship, funding opportunities, and a network of like-minded innovators. Conferences and events across campus have also been a goldmine for insights and collaborations. Most excitingly, Evolving Thinkers was selected as a semifinalist at the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge, providing me with the opportunity to refine my pitch and connect with investors and educators who believe in our mission.

The most incredible thing about being at Harvard is the sheer amount of inspiration you can gain just by talking to people. If you’re thinking about starting a venture, don’t hesitate to share your ideas—you never know who might offer a game-changing perspective or connect you to the right resources. Take full advantage of the innovation hubs, competitions, and the vast alumni network. Most importantly, stay open to iteration. The best ideas evolve through feedback, experimentation, and persistence.

HGSE has given me the confidence and tools to take Evolving Thinkers to the next level, and I can’t wait to see how this journey unfolds!

Qüento: Ruiz Clark

I came to the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) with the intent of launching my own educational technology company. The doctoral program for education leadership (EdLD) is intended for individuals who strive to catalyze system-level change in K-12 public education. While many of my peers aspire to become superintendents, the program also carves out space for people like me who wish to become entrepreneurs. 

The first-year coursework aligned well with my aspirations, given that the themes of innovation and entrepreneurship play a central role in the core curriculum. Through Dr. Monica Higgins’ course titled “Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning,” students are pushed to reflect on complex challenges by examining case studies from various industries. Through “Thinking Strategically through Education Reform,” the final project required us to conduct empathy interviews with various stakeholders in order to identify potential solutions to key issues in the field. Meanwhile, in “Sector Change,” led by Dr. Irvin Scott, the term ended with a pitch contest, through which I presented my idea to a panel of expert judges. 

It was through this pitch that I secured initial funding for Qüento, an idea that I iterated upon with my professors and cohort members over the course of the first year. In short, Qüento aims to elevate the voices of students and their communities by leveraging artificial intelligence. Using the funding that I had received from HGSE, I worked with a team of developers to build a minimally viable product (MVP). Now that the prototype is ready, I am completing an independent study under the supervision of Dr. Ying Xu, who is helping me to run experiments to test the efficacy of Qüento’s AI tool. During the third-year of the EdLD program, doctoral candidates are expected to complete a full-time residency. Through my residency experience, I will expand testing by piloting Qüento with multiple school districts across the country. 

Beyond HGSE, another aspect of the EdLD program that I appreciate is the interdisciplinary nature of the second year’s elective courses. By sampling courses across Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, I have been able to dig into topics at the intersection of computer science, law, business, and public policy. Given this, I have been able to curate a highly personalized learning experience that I feel is setting myself up for success. As such, my time at HGSE has allowed me to use the coursework as a launchpad to realize my dream of being an entrepreneur.

Dream Between the Lines (DBtL): Phoebe Grant-Robinson

With over twenty-five years of experience, my career spans the private industry as the owner and operator of a group family daycare, as well as the public industry, where I held leadership roles in a large urban school district, serving as a teacher, district special education instructional specialist, and principal for ten years. These experiences have shaped my knowledge, skills, and confidence as an education entrepreneur, deeply committed to fostering equitable outcomes for marginalized students through family engagement and early access to high-quality learning opportunities. Each of these experiences has left me with what Monica Higgins regards as ‘Career Imprints’, shaping my growth in knowledge and enhanced skills across four key domains: Capabilities, Cognition, Confidence, and Connection.

These career imprints continue to influence my approach to educational entrepreneurship, particularly as I am guided by my belief that strong parent partnerships and early exposure to structured learning experiences can mitigate the impact of poverty-induced academic gaps. In my various roles as an educator, I observed persistent knowledge and social skill gaps among students. However, personal experience and research on early learning reinforced my belief that collaboration with families is critical to long-term student success. 

In 2020, at the height of the global shutdown, Dream Between the Lines™ (DBtL)  was created to mitigate the disruption of learning and  the loss of access to literacy resources specifically for students at the intersection of homelessness and literacy proficiency. As a social-impact venture DBtL is dedicated to:

• Amplifying the conversation around literacy proficiency for students experiencing homelessness and high mobility—an often invisible subgroup.
• Engaging Title I schools in proactive strategies to foster positive literacy habits among parents in communities at risk of housing insecurity.
• Partnering with homeless shelters and housing developments to increase children’s access to culturally-relevant books, helping them see themselves in literature and develop enduring literacy habits.

What sets DBtL apart is our grassroots approach. Instead of waiting for students to maintain school attendance to access literacy resources, we actively reach families in homeless shelters and temporary housing. Through carefully curated book selections and direct parent engagement, we empower families with literacy habits that remain with them regardless of their housing situation. Our small cohort model is leveraged to foster community among parents in twelve- to fourteen-week cycles, helping them build and sustain literacy-rich environments for their children.

EDU A122, Dr. Karen Mapp’s course on The Why, What, and How of School, Family and Community Partnerships, exposed me to seminal research and reinforced the importance of centering families in my work, while unpacking and interrogating my own biases. Additionally, EDU A608, Professor Monica Higgins’ course on Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning challenged me to reflect on my leadership practice and formulate emerging theories that continue to inform DBtL’s agility from context to context while maintaining its core mission. These courses were transformative!

From the moment I arrived at Harvard, I sought spaces to develop and refine my venture. One of my first steps was joining Harvard Innovation Labs (iLab) to access expert feedback, curated webinars, and a generative work environment. Attending the HIVE launch and participating in the ALI Social Impact Hackathon further helped shape my thinking.

 For those beginning  or continuing their entrepreneurial journey at HGSE or Harvard at large, I highly recommend registering your venture with the iLab. The mentorship, networking, and resources available are invaluable. Additionally, take advantage of office hours with professors across the university. A single conversation can spark or refine an idea, leading to the transformative change you hope to create. The Harvard ecosystem is rich with opportunities—lean in, and know that you can change the world!