Harvard Grad School of Education announces winners of Zaentz Innovation Challenge

The Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has announced the winners of its 2024 Zaentz Early Education Innovation Challenge. 

Now in its fifth year of operation, the Challenge recognises and awards promising new ideas and strategic approaches that have the potential to transform early education.

On October 29, 2024, 10 finalists pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and a live audience. 

First place, second place, and audience choice winners were selected in two tracks: the Envision track, for those who have an idea and are seeking to try it out in the real world, and the Accelerate track, for those who have already tried out their idea and are seeking to evaluate it, refine it, and/or expand its reach. 

The winners received cash prizes of up to $15,000.

Accelerate Track

First Place: Childcare Business Incubator Expansion (YWCA New Britain) — An early learning setting that serves as an ‘incubator’ for family day care providers, allowing them to learn the skills needed to run and sustain their own programs (Connecticut).

Second Place: Alliance CREDIBLE (Early Learning Ventures) — A software application designed to cut down on administrative barriers to help early educators receive federal reimbursement for nutritious meals through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (Colorado).

Audience Choice: Teacher Housing Initiative (Friends Center for Children) — A program that offers eligible early educators free housing as a salaried benefit to increase teacher compensation and support a pathway to financial security (Connecticut).

Envision Track

First Place: NEST Parent CDA Program (Educators for Quality Alternatives) — A Child Development Associate certificate program for high school students to study and intern at an on-campus early childhood program that serves teenage parents, earning their certification before their graduation (Louisiana).

Second Place: AR Choice Tri-Share (Joyfully Engaged Learning) — A cost-sharing model that splits the costs of high-quality early childhood care evenly among employees, employers, and Joyfully Engaged Learning, a nonprofit that supports early learning programs (Arkansas).

Audience Choice: Immersive Experiential Major Concentration (Appalachian State University) — A bachelor’s degree program with a concentration in child development, which places students in a high-quality early childhood education lab school to gain hands-on teaching experience (North Carolina).

“All the finalists impressed us with their hard work, brilliant ideas, and commitment to strengthening early education,” Nonie Lesaux, co-director of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education said. 

For co-director Stephanie Jones the awards, and the winners, reflect the ‘palpable excitement’ in the field of early education.

“This year’s Innovation Challenge showed us the kind of strategic, entrepreneurial thinking that can transform our understanding of what’s possible,” she added.

For more information on the Zaentz Early Education Innovation Challenge, please see here. 

The recorded livestream is available here.