alteryouth

AlterYouth Limited

alteryouth

Uber for scholarships: a P2P app that lets users start their own scholarships for students in public schools, ensuring productive citizens.

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

In Bangladesh, schools are free and 98% of children enroll, yet 14% drop out before completing primary school, mostly due to poverty. That’s over 2 million children who grow up without literacy, limiting their ability to participate in the digital economy or even open a bank account. Many are sent to work or married off to reduce household expenses. Though these families live in a connected world, they remain unbanked, digitally excluded, and trapped in intergenerational poverty. At the same time, Bangladesh has one of the largest diaspora populations globally of 15 million, many of whom are eager to support their homeland. But no option exists for them to lift these students into a developed workforce who can then themselves play a role in the development of the nation as adults. Globally, 250 million children are out of school, and 1.4 billion adults remain unbanked, with women disproportionately excluded from both education and financial systems. While governments struggle with budgetary constraints, our system enables peer-to-peer scholarships—funded by individuals worldwide, verified by teachers, and delivered directly through mobile banking—closing these gaps. Our solution prevents dropouts by ensuring families an income contingent upon schooling through processes that bring them under digital and financial inclusion.

AlterYouth is a peer-to-peer scholarship app—think “Uber for scholarships.” It connects users worldwide with students from low-income families in rural schools across Bangladesh, enabling users to start monthly scholarships that prevent dropouts and fund school completion through Class 12. Here’s how it works: Government school teachers use the AlterYouth School App to apply for scholarships on behalf of students facing extreme poverty. On the other end, anyone can use the AlterYouth App to directly fund a student’s scholarship. Each scholarship is $12.5/month, transferred through mobile banking to the student’s mother. To continue receiving it, the student must maintain 75% attendance and pass grades, monitored by the teacher. The rural mothers receive mobile phones and digital bank accounts for the first time in their lives, gaining financial access, independence, and control over the funds. This makes women of vulnerable communities central to the solution while also ensuring students stay in school, rather than being sent to work or early marriage. The platform uses software to automate eligibility, reporting, and fund transfers. With over 2,600 active scholarships and a growing user base, AlterYouth offers a tech-powered, scalable way to fight dropouts and build economic opportunity from the ground up.

AlterYouth directly serves students from low-income families in rural Bangladesh who are at high risk of dropping out of public schools due to poverty. Specifically, we target students whose families lack a male income earner—children of single mothers, disabled fathers, or those who are orphans. These students face the harshest odds: working as children or being married off to reduce household expenses. As a result, they are locked out of education, digital systems, and future employment. Each scholarship through AlterYouth increases the family’s income by $12.5/month—often a 30–50% boost. This income is sent via mobile banking to the student’s mother, who also receives a smartphone. This doesn’t just keep the child in school—it makes the mother digitally and financially empowered, often for the first time. Keeping a student in school through Class 12 is one of the most direct investments in future workforce development. Every year of education significantly increases lifetime earning potential, especially for girls from low-income households. By helping students complete school and putting income and access into the hands of mothers, AlterYouth creates a double-layered impact—on education, and on workforce development and economic empowerment.