Kelly Peeler is a very accomplished woman. After graduating from Harvard and starting a job at JPMorgan in asset management, she realized many of her clients were indirectly shorting student loan debt. This got her thinking about just how serious the college debt problem is in America. Kelly quit her comfortable job and realized she could help make a difference. She started a company called NextGenVest which initially sold financial education curricula to high schools. She then moved the focus more onto helping students find all applicable financial aid possible. So far she has helped her customers save over $39 million by helping them find more than $2.7 billion in available financial aid that goes unclaimed every year. Her mantra is “Be completely obsessed with your user and be empathetic”, and this has taken her very far. She was recently honored by Forbes, being listed on the “30 Under 30” for social entrepreneurship and has been catching the attention of large companies such as Goldman Sachs and even the White House.

Eleven year-old Mikaila Ulmer has a heart for Bees. Why? Because honeybees are threatened with extinction. Mikaila’a answer to this threat was to create a business that not only used the honey the bees give us, but one that would give back to the bees themselves. Thus was born Me & The Bees: a lemonade company that uses flax seeds and local honey as sweetener. This young social entrepreneur has made it into the big stores such as Wegmans and even WholeFoods! A portion of all profit goes towards efforts to save bee populations from extinction. Mikaila’s story is simple and sweet and shows us that it is most rewarding to create a business that has focused mission and wholesome product.

NotOK: Peace of Mind, Faith in Friends

15-year-old Hannah Lucas, diagnosed with a condition that caused her to faint almost daily, used to always worry about falling and injuring herself. She wished she could just have a way to notify her friends or family when she felt like she was about to faint so that someone could come help her.

In talking to her brother about how stressful this was and how it made her worry every day, they ended up creating an app called NotOK. This app took her original idea and applied it to many more circumstances

The NotOK app is a platform that allows anyone to set a list of contacts in their phone to receive a message when you push the “NotOK” button. When the button is pushed, the set grouping of contacts receives a message with their GPS location and a message letting them know you are “NotOK”. This app fills a need for anyone at risk, whether it is depression, anxiety, being in a dangerous situation, or health related issues. Most of the time when we need others to be there for us, we don’t know how to ask. When we are really in trouble but want a more discreet way to let people know, this app serves it’s purpose very well.

It is simple, it is clean, and most importantly it is effective. Below is a video interview with Hannah where she explains and demos the NotOK app.