Moorestown Friends Alum Named To Forbes '30 Under 30' List

MOORESTOWN, NJ — A Moorestown Friends School alumnus has been named to the “Forbes” list of 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs. Ashley Edwards, of Lumberton, is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of MindRight, a non-profit group dedicated to helping at-risk youth recover from trauma, according to the school.

MindRight uses technology to to make mental health support accessible to every child living in poverty. Members send individual text messages to youth who have experienced community violence, abuse, neglect, and poverty-related stressors.

They check in with youth daily in an effort to develop positive coping skills, according to Forbes. It also provides real-time data about student emotional wellness to schools and government agencies to help them determine what young people need to change and improve.

For more information about Mindright, visit getmindright.org.

In the spring, Edwards was the keynote speaker at the Cum Laude Society and World Languages banquet at Moorestown Friends School, according to a release from the school. She spoke passionately about her career path in the non-profit sector.

“I love who I am in this work and I love who I have become doing this work,” Edwards said. “And if I could give one thing freely - it would be the the gift of knowing that you’ve changed a life. That is the gift I hope each of you can experience if you have not already.”

Edwards graduated from Moorestown Friends School in 2008, and earned an undergraduate degree in Economics from Yale University in 2012. She also earned the Yale Franciscus Fellowship in Entrepreneurship. She earned an M.B.A. and a Master of Education degree from Stanford University in 2016.

Prior to studying at Stanford, she served as Director of Operations for the first “blended learning” charter high school in New Jersey. Newark Prep Charter School blends traditional face-to-face classroom instruction with online learning.

She developed the school’s operations and data management system from launch to over 300 students. Her experiences at this charter school inspired her to work toward eliminating barriers to educational achievement for inner-city youth.

In the past, Edwards worked in venture philanthropy through an M.B.A. internship with the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and with Ekya Schools in Bangalore, India, where she helped to develop innovative school models. Additionally, she served in various positions including:

• Atrium Capital, where she was responsible for conducting due diligence on edtech investment opportunities;
• Google where she served as a BOLD Intern in People Operations; and
• Capital Micro Credit in Uganda, where she worked in microfinance lending and co-led entrepreneurship training classes at Makerere University.

Edwards has received many awards for her entrepreneurial work including the 2017 Camelback Ventures Fellowship, 2017 Halcyon Incubator Fellowship, 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellowship, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Social Change Leader Award.

The attached image of Ashley Edwards was provided by Moorestown Friends School