Bhavin Parikh

Announcing the 2015 Hansoo Lee Fellows

As you may know, my friend and co-founder of Magoosh, Hansoo Lee, passed away a little over 2 years ago after a 15-month battle with non-smokers lung cancer. He had an incredible impact on the world around him and on me.

After Hansoo’s passing, his fiancee (Wendy Lim), our classmate and former Magoosh co-founder (Pejman Pour-Moezzi), and I created a Fellowship to honor his memory by supporting entrepreneurship. We’re now in the 3rd year of the Fellowship, and we recently selected this year’s fellows.

The applicant pool continues to get stronger each year. We narrowed the applicants to four companies who each pitched to a selection committee consisting of members from the Berkeley-Haas entrepreneurship team and Haas alumni who are active entrepreneurs. Each finalist had a unique and compelling story and demonstrated an incredible amount of passion. We ultimately chose two recipients who will each receive a $5,000 stipend and mentorship from our network of entrepreneurs and investors. The two winners are 180Eats (Megan Mokri, MBA ‘16) and LiftED (Andrew Hill, MBA ‘16).

Screen Shot 2015-05-14 at 10.30.09 AMFrom left to right: Bhavin Parikh, Andrew Hill, and Wendy Lim.


 

About the Winners

Screen Shot 2015-05-14 at 10.32.58 AMLiftED is an instructional support software for special education professionals. Their mission is to accelerate learning outcomes for students with disabilities such as autism, speech or occupational impairments. They do this by providing teachers, therapists, and behavior specialists a mobile solution to measure and report student’s progress more efficiently and accurately, directly in the classroom.

 Andrew said: “The fellowship is instrumental in enabling me to work on LiftED full-time this summer and, more importantly, illustrates Bhavin’s, Wendy’s, and the steering committee’s belief in our vision at LiftED. We want to make a substantial impact on the lives of students, who are otherwise at a disadvantage as compared to their general education peers, and we greatly appreciate the support of the Hansoo Lee Fellowship.”

Screen Shot 2015-05-14 at 10.35.45 AM180Eats is looking to reinvent how busy professionals and commuters eat by offering convenient, healthy meals at home and the workplace.

Megan said: “I’m honored to receive the Fellowship, as it goes a long way in allowing me to pursue 180Eats full time while finishing up my last year in the evening and weekend program.”


 

Lastly, we’ve now raised nearly $250,000 of our $260,000 target at which point the Fellowship becomes endowed (i.e. we can support entrepreneurs for years to come just based on interest). You can learn more about the Fellowship and donate by going here.

 

Update as of May 18, 2015

We are also pleased to announce that Hanmin Lee and Barbara Morgenthau have committed $5,000 towards a challenge match for the Hansoo Lee Fellowship. Any donation given to the fellowship by June 30, 2015, up to the $5,000 total, will be matched dollar-for-dollar.

 

Read about Bhavin’s take on company culture at Magoosh:

How Being Named the Happiest Company Made Me Less Happy

Hire Slow, Fire Fast (But Do It Humanely)

 

 

Author

  • Bhavin Parikh

    Bhavin sets the vision and strategy for Magoosh, along with whatever else needs to be done. With a BS/BA in Economics and Computer Science from Duke University and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, he’s on a mission to change the way people learn and how they think about learning. Years ago, Bhavin played on several Nationals-level ultimate frisbee teams. Today, he’s our resident gelato connoisseur.