All KHeystone Projects

KHeystone Projects are year-long, scholar-led collaborations aimed at addressing important regional or global issues. 

Each autumn quarter, any interested scholar at Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) can pitch an idea for a KHeystone Project at the annual Ideas Festival. Scholars then form multidisciplinary project teams—sometimes aligned to their field of study, sometimes completely different. Throughout the year, the KHS team supports scholars with coaching, funding and mentors, and provides workshops to help teams develop their ideas. In the spring, the KHS community gathers at the KHeystone Project Showcase to hear teams share what they learned and accomplished

KHeystone Projects may continue for multiple years, and some develop into for profit or nonprofit ventures. Projects have addressed issues such as education inequity, climate change, health care access, economic development, and much more. 

Explore all projects

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  • AfterAid

    Partner with social enterprises in the Global South whose funding was cut to help them transition from aid-dependent models to sustainable, locally-backed operations.

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  • American Pillar Fund

    A revolutionary nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and addressing America's most pressing domestic challenges.

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  • Asylum Collaborative @ Stanford

    A student-faculty run group whose goal is to provide comprehensive medical and psychological evaluations to asylum-seekers across the Bay Area.

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  • AUDRI Project

    AUDRI Project will tackle Ukraine's mental health crisis amidst the ongoing war by establishing an online portal that delivers psychotherapy to Ukrainian adolescents.

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  • Backcurrent Innovation

    A global innovation initiative identifying frugal medical technologies developed in low-resource settings and adapting them for use in U.S. healthcare.

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  • Beyond Inertia

    This project explores practical ways to leverage AI to enhance efficiency in critical organizations that are often slow to adopt modern technology, aiming to reduce resource waste caused by outdated processes.

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  • Bridging Care

    Equipping generalist clinicians and community health workers with context-specific knowledge and skills for delivering essential specialist care in low-resource settings.

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  • Campus Crossfire

    A university debate and media initiative reviving civil discourse through live, student-led debates on the most important and divisive issues of our time.

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  • Central Dogma Pie

    Central Dogma Pie is creating a global educational series that explores how everything works. Making complex ideas from science, technology, history, and culture easy, engaging, and accessible to everyone.

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  • Climate Connect XR: Using Extended Reality for Climate Action

    This project aims to use extended reality technologies to create immersive climate change experiences that foster empathy and reduce psychological distance, ultimately motivating individuals and policymakers to adopt pro-environmental beliefs and actions.

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  • Despegar Fellows: Mentorship for First-Gen, Low-Income Students

    A free online mentorship and leadership program for students across Latin America who are the first in their families to pursue higher education and come from low-income backgrounds, guiding them through applications for internships, graduate study, and more.

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  • Dialekt

    Overcoming immigrant occupational mismatch through free personal and group tutoring.

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  • EconStats.org

    Making economic data more accessible with a graphical interface (and experimental LLM plug in).

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  • Empowering Futures: Improving Reproductive and Neonatal Health

    A collaborative of scholars working to identify interventions to improve health outcomes in maternal, reproductive, and neonatal health – starting with analysis and interventions at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and then scaling to local and international communities.

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  • epidemiKH

    In this project, we will work to prevent the next pandemic by developing a cutting-edge disease surveillance tool and implementing it at public health authorities around the world.

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  • FliSci's Family Forward Fund

    Establishing a comprehensive loan forgiveness fund to alleviate student and familial debt burdens in higher education, specifically targeting the disproportionate impact of educational debt on First-Generation and/or Low-Income (FLI) individuals.

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  • Indigenous Peacemaking Project

    This project supports the research and development of Indigenous peacemaking systems in tribal communities and beyond.

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  • Intelligence KHollective

    A moonshot research initiative to build an artificial society capable of bootstrapping its own legal system, legislation, mathematics, and science.

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  • KHorsepower

    Empowering people with hands-on engineering skills.

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  • Life and Career Design for High School Students

    A design thinking program that empowers high school students to discover career paths through self-reflection and hands-on exploration, moving beyond simplistic career matching tests to uncover who they truly are and what they want to contribute to the world.

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  • Mind Matters

    To build emotionally supportive, stigma-free learning environments by empowering teachers in LMICs with practical, culturally grounded tools to support student mental health.

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  • Ojos del Mar

    Ojos del mar is a citizen science platform that engages Costa Rican communities in co-analyzing imagery with marine science researchers to train machine learning models and promote public participation in ocean science. 

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  • OMG-YA KHollective

    The Open Middle Grade + Young Adult (OMG-YA) Khollective is a collaborative project to rethink the future of publishing for young readers.

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  • PhyStory

    Reconstructing the human story of physics through interactive timelines and animations that help educators teach not just what we know, but how we came to know it.

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  • Pipeline to Public Service

    Connecting interested youth with opportunities to learn more about and engage in public service at state, local, and federal levels.

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  • Power Shift: Tribal Renewable Energy

    Through partnerships with key organizations, Powershift aims to help Native American Tribes access federal renewable energy funding—enhancing energy resilience, economic development, and tribal sovereignty.

    A presenter stands in front of a screen displaying information titled "Power Shifting: Tribal Renewable Energy in Nevada."

  • Project Lembas

    Improving the VA disability claims process—building a user-friendly, AI-native solution that democratizes expert guidance and ensures veterans get the benefits they've earned.

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  • Public Service Connect

    A platform that connects and supports young individuals pursuing careers in public service through community-building and structured training.

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  • Run With It

    An initiative that empowers low-income students in East Palo Alto to “run with their dreams” by expanding access to running, mentorship, and health-focused opportunities that close the local gap in sports participation, wellbeing, and educational equity.

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  • RxReport: A journalism hub for health care providers

    Training health care providers to become scientific journalists: 1) to root medical communication in facts and lived experience and 2) to give stake to frontline workers in health policy, equity, and structural change.

    Two individuals stand together at a table displaying a sign that reads "RxReport: A journalism hub for health care providers."

  • School for a Village

    Partnering with secondary schools around the world to bridge the gap in science and technology education through need-specific support.

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  • SHTEM Summer Program (Science and Humanities)

    Building an in-person research pipeline at Stanford that connects high school and community college students with faculty mentors across science, technology, humanities, and engineering.

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  • Snarkhy Puppies

    Encouraging community around musical expression and showcasing talent within Knight-Hennessy Scholars.

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  • Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge

    A for-students, by-students global healthcare competition with one goal: ensuring that the best ideas and most promising solutions for the world’s trickiest healthcare problems are given a real chance to make an impact on the world.

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  • Stanford Housing Equity Project

    The Stanford Housing Equity Project connects university resources with Bay Area community partners to advance housing and health equity for people experiencing homelessness, including support navigating housing and social benefits.

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  • The Flip!

    A debate show with a twist (or rather, a flip!)

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  • The Stanford Explorer's Club (SEXC)

    The Stanford Explorers Club (SEXC) inspires students to pursue exploration across land, sea, air, and space through speaker events, student discussions, and collaborative projects—all while making expeditions more accessible.

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  • Tribewell

    Developing an AI-powered community search and management tool for Knight-Hennessy and beyond.

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