Culture+

Spring 2022 Class, fall 2022 class

"We are project Culture+ and are a team composed of Chinese-Americans, heritage speakers, and high school and college students who want to make learning Chinese more accessible, practical, and personalized. We believe that in order to access culture, language serves as the foundation, and for Chinese-Americans and the diaspora community, that experience is not always available. We hope that through our language programs, paired with our cultural events, and related cross-culture, immersive programs, we accelerate every learner’s path to language and cultural fluency, helping them find a reconnection with their heritage and identity.

During the GenDream Fall 22 Cohort, we received mentorship and operational support, as well as grant money to scale our organization and establish our programs. In October, our team grew to over 10 active members, who focused on project management, outreach, and starting social media campaigns. In November, we launched our first Chinese-American language learning and mentorship program—working with a group of elementary school students in North Carolina, who are continuing with us when classes begin again in the new year. In December, we launched the first cohort of our 10-week Digital Exchange Program, registering 70+ global participants and 15+ Chinese participants. Since receiving overwhelming interest, we are already planning to launch our second cohort, to begin in January. 

GenDream has provided us the confidence to take our project from pages of a pitch deck to reality, and on behalf of the team, I can confidently say we've gained all the skills to plan what comes next for us as an organization, and as high school students."

- Emma Zhu, Valen Lu

ImmiMD

Spring 2022 Class, Fall 2022 Class

“We are project ImmiMD, with a mission to break healthcare barriers globally by connecting immigrants with doctors who share their culture. Our team came up with this idea when we discussed how us, as immigrants, faced difficulties finding doctors who were culturally aware of our practices. During the fall cohort, we established and launched our MVP, grew our team to over 30 members, and fine-focused our goal before launching on a larger scale. GenDream played an integral role in helping to bring our idea to life. The incredible mentoring and advice that the GenDream coaches and peer coaches offered helped team ImmiMD go from our ambitious pitch to a viable product that we can use to begin making impacts in our local communities now. The feeling of community at GenDream is unmatched, and this community is what helped make ImmiMD so successful.”

- Amogh Rao, Aleicia Zhu