Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Hear from Graduate School of Business founders supported through Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships — Heejae Lim, MBA ’15 of TalkingPoints; Abdulhamid Haidar, MBA ’21 of Darsel; Vivek Ramakrishnan, MBA ’23 of Project Read; and Drew Barvir, MBA ’23 of Sonar -- who are innovating AI frontiers to advance educational equity and opportunity in a rapidly changing world.
More about the speakers:
Heejae Lim, MBA ’15, TalkingPoints - unlocking the potential of families to drive student success, especially in under-resourced communities. TalkingPoints has partnered with companies like Google and OpenAI, and was the first nonprofit to receive a GPT-3 license, and one of the first to experiment with custom GPTs. They have facilitated over 1 billion conversations between educators and families.
Abdulhamid Haidar, MBA ’21, Darsel - improving math learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries through chatbots that students use through low-bandwidth platforms like WhatsApp. Darsel’s AI assesses students' skills, identifies learning gaps, and provides tailored hints and explanations to support learning outcomes in resource-constrained communities where traditional, internet-heavy education tools are not accessible. Darsel reaches students by partnering closely with government school systems, and they have served over 264K students.
Drew Barvir, MBA ’23, Sonar - equipping schools and youth-serving providers to deliver mental-health support at scale. Our platform provides 24/7 chat-based wellness coaching, automates step-up or step-down referrals, and surfaces actionable insights that enable value-based care. We use a human-in-the-loop (“HIL”) model that combines the safety & judgment of people with the scalability, personalization, and cost efficiency of AI.
Vivek Ramakrishnan, MBA ’23, Project Read - closing early literacy gaps and improving literacy rates worldwide by equipping teachers and students with powerful, curriculum-aligned tools. Teachers gain access to lesson planning and creation tools that align directly to evidence-based literacy curricula, while a student-facing AI phonics tutor listens as children read aloud and provides real-time intervention.
More about the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford GSB:
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/about/centers-institutes/csi
More about Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/social-innovation/fellowships/post-graduate/sif
Hear from Graduate School of Business founders supported through Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships — Heejae Lim, MBA ’15 of TalkingPoints; Abdulhamid Haidar, MBA ’21 of Darsel; Vivek Ramakrishnan, MBA ’23 of Project Read; and Drew Barvir, MBA ’23 of Sonar -- who are innovating AI frontiers to advance educational equity and opportunity in a rapidly changing world.
More about the speakers:
Heejae Lim, MBA ’15, TalkingPoints - unlocking the potential of families to drive student success, especially in under-resourced communities. TalkingPoints has partnered with companies like Google and OpenAI, and was the first nonprofit to receive a GPT-3 license, and one of the first to experiment with custom GPTs. They have facilitated over 1 billion conversations between educators and families.
Abdulhamid Haidar, MBA ’21, Darsel - improving math learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries through chatbots that students use through low-bandwidth platforms like WhatsApp. Darsel’s AI assesses students' skills, identifies learning gaps, and provides tailored hints and explanations to support learning outcomes in resource-constrained communities where traditional, internet-heavy education tools are not accessible. Darsel reaches students by partnering closely with government school systems, and they have served over 264K students.
Drew Barvir, MBA ’23, Sonar - equipping schools and youth-serving providers to deliver mental-health support at scale. Our platform provides 24/7 chat-based wellness coaching, automates step-up or step-down referrals, and surfaces actionable insights that enable value-based care. We use a human-in-the-loop (“HIL”) model that combines the safety & judgment of people with the scalability, personalization, and cost efficiency of AI.
Vivek Ramakrishnan, MBA ’23, Project Read - closing early literacy gaps and improving literacy rates worldwide by equipping teachers and students with powerful, curriculum-aligned tools. Teachers gain access to lesson planning and creation tools that align directly to evidence-based literacy curricula, while a student-facing AI phonics tutor listens as children read aloud and provides real-time intervention.
More about the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford GSB:
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/about/centers-institutes/csi
More about Stanford Impact Founder Fellowships: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/social-innovation/fellowships/post-graduate/sif
