Young Social Innovators Compete for $145K In Westly Prize Awards January 25th in Silicon Valley

**ADVANCE INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE WITH FOUNDER/FINALISTS

Event

Sat., Jan. 25, 2025, 9:00-Noon

Haas Center for Public Service

562 Salvatierra Walk

Stanford, Calif., 94305

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Westly Foundation has announced eight finalists for the 2025 Westly Prize for Young California Social Innovators. Each will advance to compete for $145,000 in unrestricted funding – including three top awards of $40,000 – on Saturday, January 25, 2025 at Stanford University’s Haas Center for Public Service.

Since 2012, the Westly Prize honors talent, creativity, and the daring humanitarian spirit of early-stage innovators combating persistent community and global challenges. The 2025 Westly Prize finalists and their corresponding innovations follow:

Christina Mireles & Amanda Moreno: Body Empowerment Project, a nonprofit addressing eating disorder prevention among underserved adolescents through a culturally competent, near-peer mentorship model.

Ashmita Kumar & Erica Corral: Code Blue AI, is focused on reducing stroke damage using a plugin for electronic devices that promotes early detection and rapid response.

Reetam Ganguli: Bay Area based Reetam Ganguli founded Elythea to detect and intervene early in high-risk pregnancies, using machine learning language models and AI engagement to engage with patients 24/7 in a way that significantly reduces maternal mortality and complications.

Paul Kramer: Institute for Youth in Policy (YIP) is building America’s largest network of young innovators for cross-sector civic change. This national nonprofit supports youth in formulating informed, unbiased, balanced policy perspectives, regardless of party affiliation.

Maria Tiu, Charis Turner, Shaista Afzhal, & Amritpal Singh: Prime Time, a near-peer program started by UCSF medical students, empowers and equips pre-medical students from Central California to become excellent physicians, and to help fill a staggering physician shortage in the Central Valley.

Charlie McDonald & Apel Gil: RescueSight employs advanced autonomous drone technology and AI to deliver a comprehensive view of disaster areas, improving situational awareness for first responders. Their all-in-one dashboard transforms chaotic scenes into organized data.

Danielle Boyer: In 2019, Ojibwe (Sault Tribe) teen Danielle Boyer created The STEAM Connection, a youth-led charity that has reached 800,000+ children – including tribal youth – with technical education that emphasizes language revitalization, robotics, ethical artificial intelligence systems, and augmented reality.

Rea Salva & Vishesh Mehta: Zor Energy addresses rural India’s electricity challenges with a battery sharing network, allowing farmers to rent multi-functional batteries whenever and wherever they need it — at a fraction of the cost of diesel, without the investment and reliability issues of solar.

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About the Westly Foundation

Silicon Valley’s Westly Foundation, founded in 2000 by Steve Westly and Anita Yu, operates from the premise that investment in our children and youth paves the way for success in the future. The foundation works to improve the lives of at-risk children and youth in California and beyond through traditional grantmaking and annual Westly Prize awards.

Contacts

Contact: Willa Reed (Media Coordinator, Westly Foundation)

Telephone: 831-251-7414 | E-Mail: willa@westly.org | Website: www.westly.org