After a busy summer spent reviewing 70 applications (a record for us), gathering input from our youth advisors, interviewing applicant teams, and spending hours in thoughtful deliberation, we’re excited to introduce our third cohort of Breakthrough innovators!
Our four teams bring innovations designed for a range of young people and communities and represent various stages of development. However, they all share an excitement to learn, grow, and get started in Breakthrough.
Meet our Cohort 3 innovations:
- Milestone Boxes: These guided, age-based toolkits are designed to help caregivers in rural communities navigate their children’s developmental milestones and have conversations with their children.
- No Shame, Fair Game: Designed with—and for—young adults experiencing housing instability, this sexual health card game combines trivia questions with conversation prompts to spark learning and shame-free conversations between peers and trusted adults.
- Salutería: Inspired by Lotería, a traditional Mexican game similar to bingo, Salutería is a bilingual game designed to help Spanish-speaking caregivers and youth initiate conversations about sexual health, mental health, and substance use.
- Science Period: This hands-on menstrual health curriculum uses science, interactive activities, and media literacy to build body literacy among young people ages 11–14.
Over the next 11 months, these four teams will work alongside the Breakthrough team and each other as they continue developing their innovations. Along the way, they’ll build new skills, learn from the young people and communities they aim to serve, and gain tools that can strengthen their innovations for the future.
What’s next?
In October, we’ll bring our new innovators together for their first in-person lab! They’ll spend time getting to know one another and the Breakthrough team, explore various business models to advance their innovations, and test some of the key assumptions underlying their innovations. We’re excited to see where the next 11 months take them. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram and check back on our website for updates on their journey!
Suggested citation: Kim, L. (2026). Welcoming our third cohort of Breakthrough innovators. Breakthrough Accelerator. https://breakthrough.fund/welcoming-our-third-cohort-of-breakthrough-innovators/