The Social Innovation and Change Initiative (SICI) is thrilled to announce the 2024 cohort of Adrian Cheng Fellows.
This year, Fellows are advancing healthcare, transforming agriculture and climate action, broadening accessibility across sectors, and strengthening our institutions. They are activists, nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs, and community change-makers. Representing seven Harvard schools — HBS, HDS, HKS, HGSD, HGSE, HSPH, and Harvard College — this cohort exemplifies the strength and promise of cross-sectoral, cross-community social problem-solving.
Jeph Acheampong (Ed. M ‘25) is the founder of Blossom Academy, an organization that creates a pathway for underserved communities to develop data skills, empowering them to enter the evolving job market and establish sustainable livelihoods.
Dara Adamolekun (Harvard College ‘25) is the founder of ReGeneración, which empowers underemployed youth in the Dominican Republic by training them in polygon mapping and sustainability standards to help cocoa producers meet EU Deforestation Regulation requirements, creating jobs while promoting environmental sustainability and generating carbon credits.
Hellen Chabunya (MC/MPA ‘25) is the founder of CHUMA, an agricultural bank that seeks to resource women and youth to utilize climate smart agriculture to tackle food insecurity. As a social enterprise “Chuma” operates a revolving fund for affordable farm inputs and provides food parcels to ultra poor families through a model that matches idle farming estates with landless farmers on soft-term lease conditions.
Hailey How (MPH ‘25) is the co-founder of Origin Healthcare, a Hospitalist-at-Home company that provides intensive treatment at home for patients who would otherwise need care in a hospital or emergency department. This enables accessible care and aligns with older adults’ preference to age in place.
Hande Ilhan (MBA ‘25) is the founder of SeaCycle, a social enterprise dedicated to transforming seafood waste into eco-friendly biopolymers to create fully biodegradable bioplastics.
Dominic Mensah (MBA ‘25) is the founder of Dombelfarms, which empowers the 760 million+ smallholder farmers in Africa trapped in systemic poverty by providing agro-inputs and advisory services that sustain smallholder farmer businesses and create decent jobs to enhance food security, promote environmental sustainability, and alleviate poverty in rural villages.
Adhitya Raghavan (MBA ‘25) is the co-founder of Nirmaan, an innovative technology company providing turnkey solutions of battery energy storage systems (BESS) providing clean uninterrupted electricity to enhance human productivity globally.
David Riveros García (MC/MPA ‘25) is the founder and Executive Director of “reAcción” (reAction), a non-profit organization that combines grassroots mobilization, civic technology, and multi-sectoral collective action to transform public investment and prioritization, and reduce corruption in the education sector, particularly in school infrastructure and meals.
Ashweetha Shetty (MC/MPA ‘25) is the co-founder of The Penn Collective, which aims to create an informed cadre of women politicians in Tamil Nadu by building essential political skills and fostering a community of female leaders who can run for office at all levels of government, ultimately increasing the overall representation of women in politics.
Karen Sheu (MRPL ‘25) is developing the Accountable Faith, which aims to tackle the issue of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse by helping religious leaders build safe, accountable faith institutions and respond to harm in their communities using restorative justice.
Hannah Wong (M.Arch ‘25) is the founder of Remarcation, a nonprofit organization that works with disabled artists to design meaningful and effective demarcation on transparent glass walls and other hazardous features of the built environment to increase the safety of urban communities while uplifting and raising awareness in disability and design.
Joannes Paulus Yimbesalu (MC/MPA ‘25) is the co-founder of Hali Halisi, an innovative digital platform that will enhance inclusion for the Deaf community in Kenya. The platform connects Sign Language Interpreters with high-quality job placements, ensuring adherence to professional standards and fostering accessibility through assisted technology.
Returning 2023 Fellow
Eduardo Vasconcelos Goyanna Filho (Harvard College ‘25) is the co-founder and CEO of Young Peacebuilders in Brazilian Public Schools, a school violence prevention program that supports low-income students in vulnerable public schools through leadership development, mental health enhancement, and co-curricular programming on conflict resolution.
Join us in welcoming the 2024 Cheng Fellows and returning 2023 Cheng Fellows on social media by tagging us @SICIHarvard and using the hashtag #2024ChengFellows!
The New World Social Innovation Fellows Program is a rigorous program of SICI that selects and supports students – Cheng Fellows – from the Harvard community. Selected for their potential to catalyze positive social change, Cheng Fellows are committed to addressing specific social and environmental problems.