Valeria Robayo

Her nominator writes:

After being recognized with a $25,000 tuition scholarship for her submission of a community service proposal to an international challenge hosted by the Schmidt Futures Foundation in 2021, Valeria recruited a team of MIT students to found Resource Hub, an organization dedicated to helping individuals in Boston connect with mental health and social support resources tailored to their needs through a web-based tool. In addition to her scholarship, the Schmidt Foundation also awarded MIT $25,000.

Since then, Valeria has been recognized by a $3,500 grant from MIT Sandbox’s Healthcare Innovation and Venture Exploration program. She has drafted Resource Hub’s mission statement, business plan, vision statement, and several informational graphics that can be found on Resource Hub’s website: https://bostonresourcehub.org

She successfully led a team of 9 volunteers during the IAP of 2022 in populating Resource Hub’s database that now contains over 200 unique resources. She has also conducted multiple one-on-one interviews over the Spring semester with social workers and direct beneficiaries of the service to ensure that Resource Hub’s service design is user-friendly and accessible. She has established a community partnership with social workers at the Bowdoin Street Health Center in Boston, and a network of other mentors such as the BU Law Clinic, MIT professors, physicians, and researchers. She has also assembled a board of social workers and former nonprofit founders, and intends to file for nonprofit status in the next few weeks. Ultimately, Valeria is driven by a passion to increase resource accessibility in her community.