Interview Making An Impact

After winning the Startup Monterey Bay Challenge, we were contacted by the amazing organization InsideSEL.

InsideSEL is on a mission to share all about the positive progress happening within education around Social Emotional Learning, and New Wave Programs’ efforts caught their attention. They really wanted to learn more about our SEL programs, how they began, and where it's all heading. 

In late October, founder of InsideSEL Nick Woolf reached out to New Wave Programs founder Michael Handley for an interview to learn more. Once published, the article spread quickly on various social media outlets.

The exposure has been presenting us with ongoing emails and exciting phone calls from all over the world, and it really helped us surpass our 2019 goal of reaching 1,000 students.

All in all, through November and December we knew the interview was getting hits, but we didn’t know to what extent...

To our surprise, just about to turn the new year, InsideSEL released their Best 10 Articles of 2019, with New Wave Programs’ interview as #3!        

Link to interview: Teaching SEL Through Chess

Link to: New Wave Programs- Grand Prize Winner $10,000

Big thanks to InsideSEL InsideSELtwitter

Big thanks to InsideSEL InsideSELtwitter

New Wave Programs- Grand Prize Winner $10,000!

In June 2019, the California State University of Monterey Bay hosted their first round of pitches for the annual Startup Challenge Monterey Bay. Companies from all over central California met at the Embassy Suites in Marina, CA, to pitch about their businesses and business ideas.

In a similar fashion to NBC’s hit tv show Shark Tank, a series of judging panels ultimately decided who would make it through to the next round, and who would have the chance to win some major startup-money at the Final Event. Out of 100s that arrived, only a handful was selected to return back for two more rounds of grueling pitches on May 5th. 

“We didn’t make it to the Final Event in 2018, so we were determined to try again this year. Mostly I think I was just extremely eager to share all about the growth our company had made over the last year, and to show the judges that we really listened to their advice.”

-Michael Handley, Founder NewWave Programs, LLC  

To keep it short, not only did we make it through to the Final Event, we’re beyond excited to say that this was our year to take it all! Our efforts to increase Social-Emotional Learning in schools and to strengthen communities through our programs put the crowd on their feet and persuaded the panel of judges in the treacherous Otter Tank that New Wave Programs was “the one.”

You got it! New Wave Programs walked away with the title: Grand Prize Winner of the Social-Venture Division Award and $10,000 in start-up funds!

2019 Goal: Reach 1,000 students… Surpassed!

When the ball dropped to signify the end of 2018, our small but determined New Wave Programs team made a goal to reach 1,000 students with our Social-Emotional Intelligence Through Chess Curriculum before the ball of 2019 made its similar decent. 

We’re so excited to say that not only we achieve that goal, we surpassed it by 200 students! Perhaps the most exciting part of 2019 has been the amount of continued expansion from our first locations, with almost all of our original schools deciding to implement our programs district wide over the 2019-2020 school year.

We also met so many new and amazing people that came into our lives, and we’re so thankful for all the windows of opportunity you continue to open. 2020 is going to be an amazing year, and we look forward to writing you similar post come January 2021 letting you know that we reached our new goal: 10,000 students!

Thanks for your support.

Help us reach more

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