The Audacious Project, the collaborative funding platform within TED, is thrilled to announce its newest cohort of grantee innovators. This new cohort extends the vital on-the-ground work of Audacious grantees on key global issues, including reducing the flow of plastics to rivers and oceans, improving reproductive care, preventing homelessness and investing in low-income and first-generation college students.
Since 2018, The Audacious Project has invited visionary social entrepreneurs to propose their boldest ideas to solve the world’s greatest challenges, and collaborated with them to transform their ambitions into achievable and audacious, multi-year plans.
Audacious has reached new heights — with more than $1 billion committed by the Audacious community at the end of 2025 to provide the flexible, long-term funding to launch and scale these bold ideas.
Audacious has also launched a reinvestment pilot program, providing a secondary funding round to previous grantees that demonstrated significant results after their initial five years of funding. The Audacious donor community has committed nearly $50 million in total follow-on funding to three selected organizations to scale their work and sustain their impact. This pilot demonstrates a commitment to flexible, long-term funding — and to the value of providing a longer runway for organizations creating transformational change.
The 2025 Audacious cohort includes:
- Arc Institute, led by Silvana Konermann: Creating the world’s first high-utility virtual cell, an AI model accelerating medical breakthroughs toward cures for intractable diseases
- Braven, led by Aimée Eubanks Davis: Closing the college-to-career gap for low-income and first-generation college students in the United States by partnering with higher education and employers to prepare students for the workforce
- Imagine Worldwide, led by Rapelang Rabana: Scaling solar-powered, offline edtech learning solutions to reach students across Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania
- Ipas, led by Anu Kumar and Jean-Claude Mulunda: Preventing unsafe abortion in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia by removing systemic, legal and social barriers to care
- Plastic Solutions Fund, led by Nicky Davies: Reducing plastic production and fostering a reuse-based, circular economy in partnership with the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement.
- Pure Earth, led by Drew McCartor: Protecting children from lead poisoning by helping 22 low- and middle-income countries implement proven approaches to prevent exposure and reduce health risks
- Destination: Home’s “Right at Home,” led by Jennifer Loving: Stopping homelessness before it starts by scaling a proven prevention model across the country, redefining how the United States responds to the housing affordability crisis
- Solutions for Our Climate, led by Joojin Kim: Transforming maritime trade into an industry that drives global decarbonization
- The Ocean Cleanup, led by Boyan Slat: Stopping plastic from flowing into our oceans by intercepting and removing the waste accumulating in rivers
- Tiko, led by Serah Malaba: Empowering and protecting girls across Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Burkina Faso from HIV, unintended pregnancy and sexual violence by connecting them to free care and services
The Audacious Project reinvestment organizations include:
- Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT), led by Rebecca Firth: Establishing an Open Mapping Marketplace that connects trained and certified local mappers with decision-makers needing high-quality geospatial data to strengthen livelihoods and planning
- Last Mile Health, led by Lisha McCormick: Saving the lives of women and children across the African continent by partnering with governments to train community health workers to deliver cost-effective primary care and transform health financing
- Thorn, led by Julie Cordua: Hardwiring child safety into the fabric of the internet by equipping technology companies and law enforcement with AI-driven tools to combat child sexual abuse, protect children at scale and outpace emerging threats
“This year’s cohort represents what happens when humanity’s toughest problems are met with courage. It is also a declaration of what they imagine is still entirely possible. Whether they are charting paths to plastic‑free oceans, unlocking access to life-saving health services for women and girls globally or harnessing AI to prevent disease, the breadth and depth of these interventions is awe-inducing,” said Anna Verghese, executive director of The Audacious Project. “We’re humbled yet again by what the Audacious community makes possible.”
“Daring ideas matter most when they become achievable,” said Chris Anderson, founder of The Audacious Project and TED chairman. “These grantees prove what’s possible when we come together to dream big, take risks and build a more hopeful future.”
Through its unique model, The Audacious Project brings together dedicated philanthropists to give in community with one another, allowing funders to connect with groundbreaking projects that aim to solve humanity’s biggest challenges.
“The world’s problems are huge — they require audacious thinking and people willing to work together to solve them. I feel a real responsibility to give back and to support some of these immense issues through philanthropy. The Audacious Project helps me do that by connecting me with organizations that have big, bold plans and the vision to actually pull them off,” said Reed Hastings, founder and chairman of the board of Netflix and CEO of Powder. “What makes it unique is how it brings together diverse partners with serious, flexible capital to back the most visionary leaders out there. It’s an honor to be part of this community driving real systemic change.”
“Audacious brings together a community of grantees and funders who are optimistic, hopeful and believe that change is possible. As funders, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of philanthropic dollars, and to back grantee-led solutions to the problems that communities are facing. Amazing leaders deserve to be supported — and it’s our job to support them as future leaders of the world,” said Tegan Acton, founder and principal of Wildcard Giving.
Over the past eight years, the Audacious donor community has committed $4.6 billion in support of 70 bold projects spanning health, climate and community-led innovation, each one grounded in real-world work and designed to turn urgency into action. Audacious grantees have subsequently leveraged an additional $3 billion from other funders, catalyzing $7.6 billion in total funding. These figures point to the distinct power of collaborative philanthropy, when bold ideas and possibility are matched with a committed community that acts with purpose.
Audacious grantees have transformed educational systems worldwide, enrolling millions of girls in school, and have helped millions of people lift themselves out of ultra-poverty. They have driven medical breakthroughs — developing the world’s first computer-generated protein medicine, revolutionizing COVID-19 response systems and repurposing medicines to cure rare diseases. From developing the first whale language model to transforming how we track methane emissions, year after year, these projects redefine what is achievable in our world.
What these leaders imagine is possible. And we feel so lucky, together, to see a better future with them.