Stanford + Education Entrepreneurship Hub + Accelerator Opportunities
AI in Teaching and Learning at Stanford from VPUE:
Open Thought Leadership Competition: AI & Higher Education: Faculty, instructors, staff, and students are invited to submit a thought piece on a question or challenge at the intersection of AI and education. Submissions can include op-eds, essays, project proposals, dialogues, fiction, performance, videos, and podcasts. Selected pieces will influence campus conversations about AI in education, receive a $2,000 award, and be celebrated at a public event in January 2027. Learn more and submit a thought piece by November 6th.
Stanford Law School Start-Up Law: Sustainability
- Eligibility: Early-stage non-profit or for-profit entities that are focused on climate, sustainability, and impact, and that have fundraised less than $500,000, may be eligible for pro bono legal help. Priority will be given to Stanford-affiliated teams. Entities can be pre-formed. We are not currently assisting entities based outside of the United States.
- Submit a 2 min survey
- We want to hear from you and any ideas you have to better serve you.
- FIll out a short google form to give us your input and get involved with the Hub.
Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center in the School of Engineering.
We’ve got two quick opportunities we’d love to share before the week wraps up:
📅 Friday, November 6 | 1–5 PM
A half-day, hands-on workshop where students explore Mill’s in-home food recycler, dig into real usage data, and pitch what Mill should try next—working alongside Stanford students from across campus. A great way to build product and critical-thinking skills in a single afternoon! No startup idea or entrepreneurship experience required. Open to active Stanford students only—space is limited! ⏳
Funding & Other Opportunities
Please note that the following third-party links, resources, and/or materials (“Resources”) have been compiled from a collection of external sources and are shared for convenience only. These Resources are not created, operated, or endorsed by Stanford and are not affiliated with Stanford. Stanford makes no guarantees or warranties regarding such Resources, and Stanford is not responsible or liable for these Resources.
- [Global] Fortis Society: Fortis Fellowship: Offers a five month fellowship of mentorship, peer connection, and professional workshops. Taking part is free, fellows commit 2 to 4 hours a month from January to June, and the closing days in MedellĂn and the Fortis Summit are covered. Apply by November 8.
- [Global] Rockefeller Foundation and OpenAI Foundation: Cities Deliver: Funds organizations working with city governments to apply AI to public health, economic mobility, environmental resilience, and civic engagement for underserved communities. Grants run $500K to $2M over 24 months. Submit a Round 1 proposal by November 29.
- [Global] D-Prize Global Competition: Seeks aspiring entrepreneurs ready to scale proven solutions in healthcare, education, agriculture, livelihoods, clean water, and public services. Winning teams receive up to $20K; no prior founding experience required. Apply by November 29.
- [U.S.] Blue Future: Resilient Solidarity Fund: Moves $10K per month in general support to trans led, Black led, Indigenous led, and immigrant led organizations and organizers. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
- [NYC] Robin Hood Blue Ridge Labs: Catalyst: Seeks organizations using technology, data, and AI to expand economic mobility. Selected ventures receive $100K, plus 16 weeks of programming from February to June 2027. Applicants need a working product with early traction, revenue under $150K in any 12 month period, and under $500K raised. Join an applicant AMA on October 22 or November 6, and apply by November 13.
- [U.S.] Sundt Foundation: Community Grants: Supports organizations working on youth development, military and veterans services, hunger and nutrition, and basic needs. Local employee committees direct more than $2M a year across Arizona, Central, North and West Texas, Sacramento, Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southeast. Grants run on a quarterly cycle. Apply by December 15.
- [Global] Internet Society: Fellowship Program 2027: Invites people working on internet policy and community mobilization, connectivity, or safety and security into a 10 month program with a mentor, a project stipend of up to $5K, and travel support to a global or regional internet event. Projects run June to November 2027. The program supports individuals rather than organizations. Enroll in the mandatory pre fellowship training by November 22, then submit the fellowship application by December 18.
- [Global] Open Technology Fund: Internet Freedom Fund: Supports technology development, applied research, digital security work, and community convening that advance internet freedom. Awards run $10K to $900K for up to 24 months, and the fund encourages requests of $50K to $200K for six to twelve months of work. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
- [U.S.] NSF: STEM K-12: Seeks research and development on how AI and other emerging technologies can improve STEM teaching and learning across K-12 classrooms and informal settings. Awards run $25K to $750K over one to three year. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
- [Global] +EV Fellowship: Supports young people who are working tackling important problems, from healthcare access and climate to the future of food, education, longevity and science tools. Grants run $1K to $25K. Applications are open year-round.
UPCOMING DEADLINES
- Apply by November 6 – [Global] MIT Solve: 2027 Global Challenges: Invites early stage tech innovators to submit solutions across climate, learning, health, economic prosperity, and Indigenous communities, with Solver teams sharing over $1M in prize funding plus support from the MIT and Solve community.
- Apply by November 8 – [Global] Fortis Society: Fortis Fellowship: Offers a five month program of mentorship, workshops, and hands-on projects at no cost, closing with cohort days in MedellĂn and the June 2027 Summit.
- Apply by November 13 – [NYC] Robin Hood Blue Ridge Labs: Catalyst: Funds pre-seed startups and early-stage tech nonprofits using software, AI, and data to expand economic mobility in New York City, with $100K and 16 weeks of programming from February to June 2027.
- Apply by November 15 – [Global] D-Prize Global Competition: Seeks aspiring entrepreneurs ready to launch new organizations distributing proven poverty solutions across health, education, agriculture, and clean water, with winning teams receiving up to $20K.
Other Opportunities
- [Virtual] Turn.io: Learning Sessions: Runs short sessions for teams building conversational services on WhatsApp. Join the WhatsApp voice and Turn Inbox session on November 5, or the session on reaching your first 1,000 users on November 12.
- To the founders & builders: Tech Domains is launching a $1M equity-free fund backing exceptional builders and strong technical teams with up to $100K in non-dilutive capital. This is for people who are already building: you have something working, you’re seeing real signs of traction, and a bit more runway could help you move faster. That could mean more compute, the key hire you’ve been holding off on, a few more months of runway, getting to the next product milestone, or simply more room to keep building without giving up equity. Apply here
- To Founders and Builders: SGLang Summit takes place November 12–13 at Fort Mason in San Francisco, bringing together 2000+ researchers, engineers, founders, and open-source contributors. The summit connects advances in chips, models and applications with the infrastructure needed to train, serve, and scale them. The program spans recursive self-improvement, open models, agents, evals, reinforcement learning, AI hardware, robotics, world models, and more. Featured speakers including OpenAI’s Lilian Weng, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Thinking Machines Lab CTO Soumith Chintala, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, and leading voices from companies including Google, NVIDIA, Meta, AWS, and AMD. Whether you’re developing models, building AI products, or running systems in production, there’s room to dig into your own field and learn what’s happening beyond it. Across both days, you can also: Go deeper in technical breakouts and hands-on workshops on training, inference, evaluation, and infrastructure. Explore the GPU Expo and live demos, and meet the teams behind the hardware and tools. Catch early demos and works in progress through the Open Stage, coffee chats, and community meetups. Join fellow builders to compare approaches, work through practical questions, and meet people you might build with next. November 12–13, 2026 · Fort Mason, San Francisco Agenda and tickets: sglang.io/summit Developers, students, and researchers: choose a Developer & Edu pass for 40% off. Students may use code Radixark101 for another 50% off.
- [Virtual] Fast Forward: Pitch Camp: Participants will learn the elements of an elevator pitch, craft their own, and then practice pitching (multiple times) in front of trained tech volunteers who offer feedback. This is also a fantastic networking opportunity where you meet other amazing tech nonprofit leaders and enthusiastic volunteers. Sign up for our upcoming October sessions.
- Summer Venture Exploration (SVE) Info Session
Monday, Nov. 16, 2026 @ 12:00pm PT
RSVP here | Hybrid – M109 (McClelland Building, GSB) and Zoom (Details sent upon RSVP)
Audience: Returning Stanford graduate students who want to explore entrepreneurship this summer.
What: Summer Venture Exploration (SVE) programs support Stanford graduate students in evaluating a new venture idea for 8 weeks over the summer. The programs offer a ~$12,000 stipend, coaching, entrepreneurship workshops, and a supportive community. This session will review details and answer questions for the following programs:
GHCES’s Botha-Chan Innovation Program
Center for Social Innovation’s Impact Design Immersion Fellowship
EcoSprint, a joint offering of the GSB and Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability - No prior startup experience required! We’re looking for ambitious, curious, and high-agency Stanford students with the drive and potential to become the next generation of founders, venture capitalists, and innovation leaders.
Join Our Info Session- October 26, 7 PM PT
Curious to learn more? Meet the StartX team, explore the different Fellows tracks, learn about the application process, and ask your questions!
RSVP for the Info Session
Apply to StartX Fellows
Applications close November 1 at 11:59 PM PT.
Apply Now
REMARKABLE TOOL
- Stanford Graduate School of Business: Social Entrepreneurship Hub: Offers free planning tools from the Center for Social Innovation covering systems thinking, strategy for social change, impact measurement, legal structures, business modeling, funding, and leadership development. The Path to Launch framework runs four stages, from exploring a problem through designing a solution to preparing for growth, so teams can start where their work actually sits. Nothing is gated and no account is required.
Job Posting
Cobalt Collective is hiring its first staff member, a Partnerships & Engagement Manager.
This is an excellent early career opportunity for someone with a few years of partnerships, program, or client-facing experience who writes well, has good judgment, and is curious about how to tell whether products improve outcomes for learners, patients, and workers. They would help build our pipeline and engagement processes from the ground up and work closely with me.
The role is remote, with Chicago or the Bay Area preferred. Applications come directly to me at clark@cobaltcollective.org.