Our Story
“We will do more than talk about the greatest problems facing our world. We will set the course to solve them.” —L. Rafael Reif, President, MIT
Solve was born out of the Office of the President of MIT in 2015, a natural offshoot of MIT’s mission to advance knowledge in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Solve is a marketplace for social impact innovation: we find innovators around the world and broker partnerships across our community to scale their work—driving lasting, transformational change. To accomplish this, we designed the Solve Innovation Cycle.
Each year, Solve launches four Global Challenges. Entrepreneurs apply through our open innovation platform, and the most promising are selected as Solver teams. We then convene our cross-sector community to build the partnerships these Solver teams need to scale their impact.
In the last three years, thanks to its partners, Solve has brokered commitments of over $25 million in funding for Solver teams and social entrepreneurs.