Private tutoring can be a vital supplement for students, and it’s an important source of income for the individual instructors. It’s also a thriving industry, approaching over 100 billion dollars globally.

Private tutors are usually vetted and matched with clients through an intermediate company, which substantially drives up costs and makes the service less accessible to cash-strapped students. Moreover, the process of advance scheduling rarely suits the immediate, specific needs a student has (e.g. an obstacle that emerges the day before a paper or exam). Travel requirements can impose additional costs and limitations.

Quickhelp, winner of the 2015 Harvard Public Sector Innovation Award*, addresses these challenges through a robust smartphone app that directly matches students and tutors using precise data about location, availability, subject area, and specific request details from the client.

Founders Hikari Senju and Mazen Elfakhani—a computer science...

Land and building assets make up a large chunk of government portfolios. Experts claim it is the largest source of public wealth, far exceeding cash in treasury. These assets also constitute a tremendous financial opportunity for economically strapped governments. Reports estimate that OECD governments may be sitting on up to 9 trillion dollars in saleable real estate, much of which is under- or un-utilized.

Alex Kapur, co-founder of the technology startup OpportunitySpace, said most urban areas have a large amount of real estate that isn’t being used productively. “This has several negative impacts,” he said. “For starters, it directly erodes the tax base on which towns and cities rely for revenue, and it further decreases surrounding property values.” Neglected properties can also degrade the quality of life in a neighborhood, as when blighted buildings result in higher crime and public safety hazards, like fires and contamination.

OpportunitySpace is the 2013...