Backing Bold Ideas: How MIT Solve Fuels Tech-Enabled Social Innovation

This article was originally prepared by Professor Andrew Leon Hanna (no relation to Hala Hanna) as a case study for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Global Social Entrepreneurship Lab.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change.

I am changing the things I cannot accept.”

–Angela Davis–

Today’s most entrenched problems across the globe – the refugee crisis, inadequate access to quality education and health care, homelessness, threats to environmental sustainability, and more – are solvable by innovators designing tech-enabled solutions in their communities. When these entrepreneurs are provided with funding and support, they can use a mix of technology, creativity, and heart to address the challenges they see daily. They can build a more just, sustainable future.

In short, “technology, in the right hands, can transform lives.”[1]

This is the driving belief behind MIT Solve (or simply “Solve”), one of the world’s leading institutions in social innovation. An initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Solve is “a marketplace for social innovation”[2] that advances solutions to address the world’s most pressing issues, as described by its executive director Hala Hanna. Solve works primarily through its flagship “Global Challenges” – an annual social innovation competition garnering applications from entrepreneurs around the world. Selected “Solver teams,” of which there are more than 300 to-date, are provided with critical funding and take part in a nine-month support program. Additionally, vetted Solve applications from across the world can be found on its website, viewable by potential partners, funders, and advisers. In that sense, Solve is both a marketplace social venture itself and a funder of social ventures.

Through both its Global Challenges and its periodic “custom challenges” run in collaboration with partner organizations, Solve seeks “innovative, human-centered, tech-based solutions.”[3] Its judges look for a high potential for impact, the use of technology in an innovative and accessible manner to reach underserved communities, a feasible plan for implementation, and evidence that the solution was co-created with or for those served.

An “impatient quest” for impact

Much like many of the Solvers she and her team support, Hanna herself is an example of an entrepreneur with lived experiences that deeply motivated her to act. As she shared in an interview:

I grew up in Lebanon, home-schooled and internally displaced for a few years due to the civil war, but with a paradoxically happy childhood full of love, art, and sun. As I grew older, the injustices around me became much clearer, and with two socially minded doctors as parents, it was impossible not to care about fixing those inequalities.[4]

Hanna’s “impatient quest,” as she puts it, for transformative social impact led her to a wide range of impact-oriented roles in policy, strategy, and partnerships. At the World Economic Forum as Director of Strategy and Impact, she led an employment initiative in the Middle East. At the World Bank and UN, she advised governments on public sector reforms and donor engagement. Now at Solve, she leads the organization’s efforts to find and scale solutions addressing global challenges.

In reflecting on her career of impact, Hanna is quick to note that – while yes, she worked hard – the people who supported her along the way played a pivotal role:

I’ve had many lucky breaks along the way. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today, but it wouldn’t have happened without people believing in me and giving me a chance. Fifteen year-old me could never have imagined that I’d travel the world with the World Bank; make the smartest, kindest friends while studying at Harvard; work with presidents and luminaries at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and help build an MIT initiative that carries all the values I believe in.[5]

Bringing capital to social entrepreneurs across the globe

This concept described by Hanna – of having others who believe in you and give you a chance – is core to Solve’s mission, as it provides capital, networks, and advising to social entrepreneurs across the globe. 

Above all, it starts with capital. Solve’s most direct work is mobilizing funding and bringing it to some of the world’s most innovative solutions and teams. The problem, as Hanna notes, is that “the biggest catalyst for change remains funding, and yet we know that capital remains too concentrated – geographically, topically, and to certain types of entrepreneurs.”[6]

There are major gaps in funding for early-stage social entrepreneurs, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. For-profit social ventures often struggle to find investors who are mission-aligned and willing to accept lower returns in order to maintain the venture’s mission of serving disadvantaged communities. Meanwhile, nonprofit social ventures frequently have difficulty getting funding from foundations, which can be reluctant to back early-stage, unproven ideas. This funding gap is a fundamental global issue because it means that potentially transformative ideas – including from those who know the issues deeply – never get off the ground.

These for-profit and nonprofit social ventures, as well as hybrids, are welcomed by MIT Solve. The organization has so far directly provided more than 300 Solvers – or winners of the Global Challenges – with more than $80 million in non-dilutive support. Ventures receive critical funding that allows them to get off the ground, launch their pilots, or scale their successful work. Example Solver teams are wide-ranging, but three recent ones include Housing NOW, which creates prefabricated, modular, and low-cost housing in Myanmar[7]; Ilara Health, which makes common diagnostics more affordable and accessible through portable, telemedicine-enabled ultrasound devices in Kenya[8]; and Musa, which delivers accessible, personalized microlearning through WhatsApp to democratize education across Latin America.[9]

In addition, Solve annually launches a wide range of more tailored custom challenges around specific themes, often supported by major sponsors. Take the Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion, which was co-sponsored by the Andan Foundation. Solve spearheaded the project, announced the call for applications, and – after selecting 90 finalists – funded three social ventures.[10] One winner was Thaki, a social venture that brings digital literacy and e-learning to refugee and vulnerable children in the Middle East. Its delivery of edtech hardware and offline educational software has so far reached about 33,000 children in more than 170 schools and learning centers. Solve’s funding was critical to Thaki’s ability to scale its work.

Solve takes pride in not just providing capital directly through its challenges, but also in helping Solvers find follow-on funding to continue to grow. Teams are eligible for ongoing monetary prize opportunities directly facilitated by Solve, and are also introduced to a community of potential external funders. The team notes that, in all, more than $1 billion has been raised by its for-profit and hybrid teams.

Providing support far beyond capital

This ability to generate follow-on capital through strategic connections is part of Solve’s broader work to connect social entrepreneurs to a wide-ranging network of partners. The team notes that it has built more than 800 partnerships that include funding and resources for social entrepreneurs in its ecosystem. It brings this powerful network together through two flagship events each year: the “Solve Challenge Finals,” held in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly, and “Solve at MIT,” held on MIT’s campus. As Hanna notes, “For every success story we tell, there is someone on the other end of it opening their door, their network, and their checkbook.”[11]

Solvers who are selected during the Global Challenges enter a robust nine-month support program designed to provide networks, community, and the backing of the MIT community – a compelling proposition given the technology-enabled nature of the ventures. The program includes capacity-building workshops in a range of functional areas required for social venture founders, leadership coaching, access to pro bono resources, media exposure, and more. As Hanna told an audience of changemakers at a Solve event:

Solvers, your presence here is a promise for the people that you serve and the communities that you represent… that they are not forgotten, that they matter. It is also a promise to you that you are not alone and that you are seen. There is a community of champions both here and at MIT that will lift you up.[12]

More than just the support programs and strategic connections is something less tangible: the recognition and encouragement provided to Solvers. The road to launching and scaling a social venture is one of many ups and downs. There are rejections from funders, questions from others about whether what you are doing is wise compared to more traditional career paths, and of course the actual challenge of building a product or service that meaningfully impacts people’s lives. For applicants who are not accepted, the hope is that the application process helps them think through, pressure-test, and crystallize their ideas – making their ideas stronger and providing more confidence in their models going forward. For those who do become Solvers, the hope is that their selection is a moment of encouragement and brings continued peer support. As Hanna describes it:

So often the difference between survival and death of a great solution is the risk-taking of early supporters. And our Solvers tell us all the time, “I was about to quit, but this recognition made me stick it out. And now I’m over the hump. I’ve raised $28 million. I’ve tripled my revenue. I hired my first employee. [And so on.]”[13]

Building a world that accelerates tech-enabled social innovation

In large part thanks to the ongoing funding and support provided to social venture founders, 94 percent of Solve teams selected in the past five years are still operational[14] – a figure that Hanna notes is comparable to around 70 percent for similar programs.[15] Overall, more than 330 million lives have been reached by Solver teams in communities all across the globe. This includes the delivery of health-related products and services to more than 29 million people, of environment and health monitoring to more than 100 million patients, of educational content to more than 61 million children, and of internet access to more than 6 million people. [16]

Looking forward, the team at Solve continues its mission to support innovative teams while also aiming to catalyze a generation of well-supported tech-enabled social entrepreneurs. Like most effective social ventures, they have come to rely in part on compelling storytelling. The team launched an award-winning docuseries called “The Big Idea” that follows three Solver teams: “an innovator stabilizing vaccine temperatures in remote regions, a creator of antiracist technology reducing Black maternal mortality, and a developer of robot-building kits empowering Indigenous youth.”[17] The series has generated significant viewership and awards, with the aim of showing the power of communities and inspiring new changemakers.

To mobilize more systemic support for these up-and-coming changemakers, the team is working to build a model aimed at demonstrating the power of investments in social ventures. As Hanna describes it, “We’re building a new model where social innovation isn’t seen as charity but as the highest-leverage investment possible. By our next decade, we aim to shift billions toward solutions that scale exponentially and reach communities where traditional systems have failed.”[18]

Finally, as the technology landscape evolves and advances in artificial intelligence accelerate, Hanna and the team at MIT Solve continue to prioritize finding people who will use technology to build a more hopeful, inclusive, and just world. Hanna notes that “of the nearly $300 billion in venture capital investments in AI from 2019 to 2024, less than 1 percent went to initiatives aimed at social impact.”[19] Solve’s goal is to help better align the major potential of AI toward applications that matter for our communities.

This broader vision – of a world where technology is used for the people, where funding is provided to bold changemakers who have the heart and creativity to support their communities, where stories of their communities are told with dignity – is what the Solve team is working to build. In her closing remarks at 2024 Solve Challenge Finals, Hanna summarized it best:

We believe in a future where technology doesn’t divide us… but connects us. Where the quietest, most vulnerable voices are just as heard as the loud ones. Where every person – no matter where they’re born – gets the opportunity to thrive. And we believe we are active participants in what the future will look like. The future is being built by the innovators in the room today, and by all of you as you support their journey.[20]

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[1] “Five Minutes with Hala Hanna, Executive Director of MIT Solve,” NationSwell (March 13, 2025), https://nationswell.com/five-minutes-with-hala-hanna-executive-director-of-mit-solve.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Become a Solver,” MIT Solve, https://solve.mit.edu/innovators/become-a-solver.

[4] “Meet Hala Hanna of MIT Solve,” Boston Voyager (June 5, 2018), https://bostonvoyager.com/interview/meet-hala-hanna-mit-solve-600-tech-sq.

[5] Ibid.

[6] “Opening Plenary: Welcoming Remarks from Hala Hanna,” MIT Solve, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIksFjPXYyc.

[7] “Annual Report – 2023,” MIT Solve, https://info.solve.mit.edu/hubfs/MIT%20Solve%20-%20Annual%20Report%202023.pdf.

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Solver Teams,” MIT Solve, https://info.solve.mit.edu/solver-class-2024

[10] “Andan Announces Winners of Innovation for Refugee Inclusion Prize,” Andan (Sept. 30, 2024), https://www.andan.org/technological-digital-inclusion-projects/andan-mit-solve-innovation-in-refugee-inclusion-prize-yl36l.

[11] “Opening Plenary: Welcoming Remarks from Hala Hanna,” op. cit.

[12] “Hala Hanna Delivers Closing Remarks During Solve Challenge Finals 2024 Closing Plenary,” MIT Solve, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2H-9cCCs3U.

[13] “Opening Plenary: Welcoming Remarks from Hala Hanna,” op. cit.

[14] MIT Solve, https://solve.mit.edu.

[15] “Five Minutes With Hala Hanna, Executive Director of MIT Solve,” op. cit.

[16] “Impact,” MIT Solve, https://solve.mit.edu/impact.

[17] “Five Minutes With Hala Hanna, Executive Director of MIT Solve,” op. cit.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] “Hala Hanna Delivers Closing Remarks During Solve Challenge Finals 2024 Closing Plenary,” op. cit.