In the big bad world of college searching and funding every student will ask the question “how much?” This question almost always refers to both how much it actually is to go to a school and how much scholarship said school will allot them. However, most students do not know about outside-of-school funding, whether it be state or private funding. The reason being is because of the hassle of the applications for said other scholarships and thus students leave a great asset and well of wealth to the wayside. But now there is a brilliant App/Website designed by a student to help students with their funding needs. Scholly is the brilliant and much needed brainchild of Christopher Gray. Being a low-income student himself, Gray searched for months during his latter years of high school applying for various scholarships until he had racked up enough cash to cover all college fees and then some. The process he went through however, was not an easy one nor a quick one. Thus, Scholly was born. Designed to easily connect students to private scholarships, Gray and his co-founders Nick Pirollo and Bryson Alief came up with an 8 parameter algorithm for easy scholarship connections. Even though it is practically a brand new company, Scholly has helped give out over $20,000,000 to 600,000 users since early 2015. From Chris Gray and me to my fellow broke classmates who are required to write comments; you’re welcome. 
Archive for Education – Page 5
Although she didn’t attend Grove City College, Katie Davis is as much a Grover as any of us. She was her senior class president and homecoming queen; she had a fantastic group of friends and loving parents who supported her and wanted her to get a great education to prepare her for a successful career. Unlike most of us though, Katie did not attend college after she graduated high school. Instead, she moved to Uganda to teach kindergarten.
Many of her friends and family thought she was crazy, but Katie knew she was following God’s call. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t difficult days. Katie experienced numerous struggles and trials that first year, including a language barrier between her and her students. Although this was one of Katie’s biggest challenges initially, she found that even though people may not be able to understand each other through language, they understand a smile or a hug- they understand love. In her words, “love knows no language.”
But how is Katie an entrepreneur? Teaching kindergarten in Africa hardly seems entrepreneurial.
After learning that many children in Uganda are unable to attend school because of the fees that the schools require, Katie started a sponsorship program to connect orphaned and vulnerable children with sponsors. For $300 a year-less than $1 a day- a sponsor not only sends a child to school, but also provides school supplies, 3 hot meals every day, spiritual discipleship, and medical care for the child. Through this program alone, Katie has made a difference in the lives of over 700 children.
When the initial sponsorship program took off, Katie realized that she could help the Ugandan people in numerous other ways. In 2008 Katie founded Amazima Ministries International to “meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the people of Uganda who need it most.” Through this non-profit, Katie has started a feeding outreach to one of the slums in her area, a classical Christian secondary boarding school, a self-sustaining vocational program for women, a medical outreach, and a farming outreach all in addition to the initial education sponsorship program. 
Katie recorded her story in her book called Kisses From Katie. I first read this book four years ago at the suggestion of a missionary to Zambia, and Katie’s story and accomplishments continue to inspire me.
Oh, and did I mention that Katie also adopted 13 Ugandan children? But this blog post is already long enough, so just go check out the Amazima website to read more about Katie and everything that Amazima is accomplishing in Uganda!
Mike Grady’s Pitching School
I am going to talk about
- Who Is Mike Grady
- What is Mike Grady’s Pitching School
- How is he a successful millennial entrepreneur
Mike Grady is a man who has been involved in baseball his whole life, playing for North Canton Hoover High School and Malone University as well as coaching at Malone with many notable honor and awards for his career as a player and coach. In his love for the sport he decided to share his years of experience with others and has had much success doing it to which you can see for yourself if you visit the link http://www.gradyspitchingschool.com/ . With the success he has here, he decided to teach to others as well. He taught business classes in Massillon, but now teaches in his home town of North Canton at Hoover High School. There he is head of the business department and teaches a majority of the classes. Here he also teaches a senior level class called Business and Entrepreneurship, in this Junior Achievement class he has coached 3 teams to the National Student Leadership Summit in only 2 years. He still teaches at Hoover as well as maintaining his pitching school.
Grady’s Pitching School is a place where young players go to fine tune their baseball game. He focuses on pitchers, but has taken others as well. Here he has developed kids to reach their potential, he has coached many kids who have had very successful careers and kids throwing 90 mph fastballs at the age of 17 and 18. His business is run and maintained by him and him alone.
I believe he is a successful entrepreneur because there are plenty of trainers in the North East Ohio region and in the Stark County area, but he still has proven time and time again that his service is the best choice for your money. He also proves his success by the way he mentors his kids and customers on the diamond and in the classroom with his students showing much success as well during and after his classes.
As a college student, I know how expensive college is. I also know how hard it is to find scholarships that fit my needs. Christopher Gray saw this problem too as he grew up in a single parent household and had little to no means to go to college.
When Chris was in high school, he sifted through thousands of scholarships, and with a lot of hard work, he won $1.3 million in scholarships. As his own journey was very hard, Chris wanted to make it easier for other students. So Chris founded Scholly. Scholly is an app that helps high school seniors, current undergraduate students, or graduate students find scholarship money. It uses a patented scholarship-matching platform that gives you a targeted list that actually meets your needs and qualifications.
Scholly believes that everyone should be able to afford access to a quality education, regardless of who they are, where they’re from, or what they have. It is only $2.99, so it is cheap and accessible.
After Scholly was featured on Shark Tank, it became the #1 overall app in both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store for over 3 weeks. In addition, the app has won numerous awards and Chris Gray has also won awards for his company.
Through all this success, Scholly is still dedicated to connecting students to over $50 million in scholarships so they can go to the colleges of their dreams. The company continually tries to improve and strengthen their company so they can go on to help more students reach their full potential.
How much would you sacrifice to have a college education? If you’re a college student, you have probably been there. Considering how you’re going to pay for college and what means to do so. Scholarships? Loans? Parents?
When Christopher Gray was a junior in high school, he realized his family would not have the means to send him to college, but he believed a college education was a necessity. He started to apply for scholarships. After a tedious 7 months, he accumulated over $1.3 million dollars in scholarships (including some entrepreneurial scholarships…hint hint). Gray described the process as a lot of unnecessary work, but now he was essentially an expert at the scholarship system. He knew something had to change. Something to make college students’ lives just a little easier. In 2015, Gray launched an app/website that creates an easier process to connect aspiring college students to scholarships.
Accompanied by his co-founders Nick Pirollo (26) and Bryson Alef (24), Christopher Gray (24) created Scholly.
Scholly has generated over 600,000 users (which continues to grow) and is estimated to have facilitated $50 million in scholarships. Gray was also featured on Shark Tank which helped his idea get big.
I personally think the mission of Scholly is amazing, and though I haven’t used the app…I believe the testimony and experience of Christopher Gray is enough to support his idea. Gray’s college education paid off (quite literally)! He saw a problem: that being an outdated system in a technologically advanced world. It is encouraging to see how Gray took a personal struggle and turned it into a success, and I’m sure the college student community is very grateful for his work. Since Scholly was just so recently introduced, I am certain the success will continue to grow.
For anyone who might be interested in scholarship opportunities, here’s a link to get you hooked up with a Scholly account.
Nothing can light a fire under a cause quite as quickly as an entrepreneur driven by passion. If you speak truth and dedicate yourself to the grindstone, the world will stop and listen.
Shiza Shahid is perhaps as dedicated as they come. As a teen, she spent her free time volunteering and was already an activist of several different causes. Time went by, she attended Stanford University and afterwards started at a job in Dubai as a business analyst. During this period of time, Shiza kept up to date with news from her home country, but things looked pretty grim. Between the period of 2007 and 2009 the Taliban had taken control of Pakistan and, due to their beliefs, bombed nearly 2,000 schools for girls.
“When I grew up in Pakistan it was pretty safe; I used to cycle outside,” She stated.
“I felt like home was being robbed from me. It was a very, very broken place.”
Not to long after reading about the atrocities, Shiza viewed a documentary by BBC about an 11 year old girl named Malala. The documentary talked about the struggle Malala faced in a realm where an education was hard to come by and even dangerous to pursue. Heartbroken for the girl, Shiza kept up to date with news on the issue until she received word in 2012 that Malala had been shot by a Taliban member on a school bus.
Shiza flew to London were Malala was hospitalized and the two became fast friends. The girl, now 15, stated that she wanted to continue her campaign in hopes that one day girls like her will not have to be fearful when it came to getting an education. Shortly after, ‘The Malala Fund’ was created and the young entrepreneur worked tirelessly to make sure it achieved the proper support, eventually bringing on a a board of advisers.
Their goal is to offer a safe, 12 years of quality education to girls, and they’re well on their way.
– Read more about the Malala fund or Donate at www.malala.org
William Zhou, born in 1992, always assumed a teacher’s job was easy. They taught out of the book, handed out papers, and had three months of the year to lay on the beach. Not too bad, right? He began observing his high school teacher’s lesson planning and grading of papers when he noticed how not so simple it was to run a classroom. He first creates Planboard to help lesson planning easier. Extremely successful, Planboard later wins $25,000 from the University of Waterloo Velocity Venture Fund and a partnership with Ontario Teachers’ Federation. With a growing user fan base, Zhou expands the service to Chalk.com, a Microsoft-like software tool for teacher collaboration, lesson planning, and assessment.
Chalk.com aims to make it easier on teachers to provide a beneficial learning place. The goal is to encourage a personalized education for student success. Browsing on their site, it is easy to pick up on how youthful the service is. All the company leaders are under the age of 40 and along the side of the page are quotes of co-founders Zhou and Fleming who have experienced the power of education through amazing teachers and family members. Just out of school themselves, these leaders know first-hand the work that goes into a great classroom lesson.
Students complain all the time (especially in high school) about not getting a grade back fast enough. We groan and whine at our teachers asking juvenile questions like, “What else do you have to do during the year? You have the entire summer off!” Zhou thought the same thing, until he started exploring. If Zhou had not looked closer at what a teacher does to create a great classroom atmosphere, he would have never noticed the struggle teachers go through on a daily basis. Chalk.com looks to lighten the burden of lesson planning, grading, and assessing through an easy-to use software system approved by over 20,000 schools worldwide.
See Chalk.com
The evolution of smart phone technology has modified so many functions of everyday life. It started with music, and quickly took over the necessity for computers, and then wallets. Now smart phone technology has the ability to allow doctors to move away from their signature accessory: the stethoscope- to a more modern sleeker version.
Eko Devices allows doctors to use a stethoscope attachment that amplifies the patient’s heart beat into a software program on smart phones. The key to this new advancement is core technology( the amplification device). The Core transmits the sound waves into the Eko application in which the sound is recorded and can be stored and filed under each patient.
Eko Devices was founded by three guys (Connor Landgraf, Tyler Crouch, and Jason Bellet) with a dream to modernize one of the simplest duties of a medical professional. They have received over 800,000 dollars in angel donations to get their company off the ground. The core system is available for purchase, and the application is available for all apple devices and coming soon to android. Currently Eko Devices is backed by countless industry leaders, and well known physicians.
These three young men saw a device that wasn’t dated by any means, but decided it was time to modernize it. I think it will be interesting to see how they adapt their business model to be conducive to other adapters, allowing the medical professional to take other vital signs right from their smart phone.
Willow Tufano is a now fifteen year old girl who lives in Florida, but she was only fourteen years old when she bought her first house with the help of her mother, and began renting it out for $700 a month. The two now own an additional house which they also rent out. They bought the first for $12,000 and the second for $17,500, incredibly low prices in the housing market. Willow’s plan is to buy her mother’s half of the houses when she turns eighteen and is legally allowed to own a house, she also hopes to own ten of these homes by that point.
Willow’s mother worked in real estate even before Willow asked for help to buy a house, and Willow helped gut and renovate houses for her mother, as she does still, now, for the houses that the two buy together and rent out. Willow has put so much time into these houses and this business that she has left her full time school for the gifted to be homeschooled through Florida’s Virtual School.
I am personally inspired by Willow because I know adults who are in a similar business, with buying and renting out houses, who are much later in life than she is. I didn’t think it was possible for a girl her age to be handling such big projects and to be putting so much energy into something that is generally something that adults who are older than her do. She’s also inspirational because she is able to balance school and her business, and she was able to recognize that she wouldn’t be able to do that while still enrolled in traditional schooling, and made the decision to switch to homeschooling. 