Mai Soli Foundation wins first prize in B.E.T.A Challenge
Friday, April 23rd, Mai Soli Foundation won the Babson College B.E.T.A. challenge, landing the first prize in the undergraduate track of the competition with $20,000.
Participating in the competition were co-founders Aria Mustary, President, and Aaron Wendell, Vice President of Operations. Core members of the team Glen Ged, Vice President of Operations, and Nipa Das, Regional Director of Bangladesh supported the Mustary and Wendell throughout the competition.
This competition is designed around identifying and recognizing ventures that have created a truly innovative idea, and brought it to life through entrepreneurial action. The criteria involved assessing the overall degree of entrepreneurial thought and action in a particular venture.
Typically, while this competition has been open to ventures in different industries and with different aims, nonprofits rarely advance to become semi-finalists. Mai Soli Foundation has proven that their approach to solving the centuries-old problem of child marriage mirrors the innovative solutions typically found in highly scalable technology startups
“…Mustary showed a keen understanding of the problem of child marriage, its root causes, and its nuances.
- Donna Levin, B.E.T.A. Challenge Judge
Mai Soli Foundation applies the same entrepreneurial concepts of problem solving, pain point recognition, and scalability that are typically embraced by high growth for-profit ventures. Embracing these concepts as the bedrock of their program, Mai Soli Foundation has proven to be just as innovative at producing fresh and revolutionary ideas as for-profit startups.
Over the months in which this competition took place, Mai Soli Foundation’s team pitched and detailed their work to end child marriage. By isolating the root cause through stakeholder interviews, leveraging unique connections in Bangladesh, and communicating across cultures, the team developed a solution that attacked the key driver of child marriage there: poverty. By developing competencies in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and confidence, Mai Soli unlocks potential that alleviates the financial burden faced by families.
“While other companies and organizations may push girls into paths they do not want, we make sure we address the root of the problem, by creating economic value and self-sufficiency.”
- Aria Mustary, Founder and President of Mai Soli Foundation
With the money from this competition, Mai Soli Foundation plans to lay the ground-work for a program that will empower the girls to launch their own micro-businesses, putting money in their pockets and creating direct economic value in the process. This will also partially subsidize the next round of young girls to enter the program. In combination with the launch of future products, Mai Soli Foundation aims to remain highly scalable, achieving growth and expansion to new regions with similar drivers of child marriage.
For more information on the work Mai Soli Foundation is doing, be sure to visit their website or follow them on instagram.
