Christopher Gray was born and raised by a single mother in an extremely poor neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama. Some of his favorite hobbies as a kid included video games and superhero comics. Gray won many academic competitions by the time he was in fourth grade. His academic future was looking very bright. However, he had trouble getting financial aid due to his mother’s credit record. He also didn’t possess the materials that were necessary to research and apply for scholarships. He had to go to the library that was close to where he lived. There was a 30 minute limit on computer usage, which meant that he was forced to take many breaks while requesting scholarships. He ended up applying for approximately 80 scholarships. Amazingly, with the assistance of the library and Google, he won $1.3 million in the form of scholarship money, leading to his decision to attend Drexel. When he got to college, he wanted to make the process of searching for scholarships online easier for other kids. He started Scholly with the help of a couple of coworkers. Scholly uses a student’s background to match them with the scholarships that are most fitting for their profession. It also gets rid of guesswork and makes research easier for other students. In 2015, Gray was invited to appear on Shark Tank while he was an undergraduate at Drexel. The Shark Tank investors liked Gray’s confidence and dedication to his company. Christopher Gray proved that you don’t need to have a large amount of money before you start a successful company.
https://esme.com/single-moms/sons-daughters/the-passion-of-christopher-gray
I think this is an innovative and great idea. I know from experience; a lot of people don’t apply for scholarships because they think it’s too difficult, and don’t think they will receive it. In reality, a lot of scholarships don’t have many or any applicants and there is essentially a lot of “free” money not being taken advantage of. In my school, there was a scholarship that was supposed to be exclusively for women, but nobody applied except for a male. He ended up winning the scholarship. So, a product that will make this process easier and friendlier could benefit a lot of people intimidated by the system.