Team One Names 4th Annual Recipient of The Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship

The Legacy Lab, Team One’s award-winning think tank and strategic consultancy, has announced the recipient of its fourth-annual Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship. This year’s scholarship was awarded to Antoinette Banks, who is a current Ph.D. student in the Learning and Mind Sciences program at UC Davis.

Launched in 2019, The Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship’s goal is to champion students who represent the next generation of legacy makers. This year, the scholarship saw its biggest turnout with more than 200 submissions from Black and African-American students across the country, many of whom are studying at top-ranked, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

The $15,000 scholarship was awarded to Antoinette based on her impressive research that focuses on elevating the importance of technology in special education classrooms which emphasises predictive and artificial intelligence models. Banks is an award-winning innovator and researcher, who also identifies as a Black student-mother of an autistic teenager. Banks is the author of 'Better Than a Diagnosis: A Single Parents Guide to Autism' as well as the CEO of Expert IEP, a multi-award winning educational technology (EdTech) company that supports parents of students who learn differently.

“When we launched The Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship four years ago, our aim was to recognise and reward students who represented our future leaders,” said Mark Miller, chief strategy officer at Team One and founder of The Legacy Lab. “It has become increasingly clear in the submissions received that these students are more than future leaders, they are leading the way forward right now in creating meaningful change in business, culture, and society. In turn, the scholarship program serves as an important reminder that leadership doesn’t exclusively come with age, and younger people also can be wiser.”

This year’s The Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship recipients represented different disciplinary backgrounds - artists and designers, medical students and registered nurses, and entrepreneurs with foundations dedicated to the uplifting of marginalised educational and first-generation communities. Each applicant demonstrated a fervour to be a beacon of hope and guidance, bringing their personal life experiences and first-hand encounters to forge a path forward for others.

On her award, Antoinette remarked, “As a single mother of an autistic child, the road to parental advocacy and education is filled with detours of every kind. Winning this scholarship confirms that I am on the right path to change how the world views our children - and I can be a voice for the voiceless. As a Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship recipient, I plan to continue my studies as a Ph.D. student in Learning and Mind Sciences at UC Davis. I can focus narrowly on my goals to improve student learning environments by building my app, Expert IEP - a parent-facing tool to optimise students IEPs using a predictive-based model. My mission is to leave a legacy of unapologetic hope for students who think and learn differently.”

With substantial responses from accomplished participants yet again, The Legacy Lab and its judging panel decided to expand its Rising Star Award program as well, recognising four additional students this year. Rising Star Awards were granted to:

Emma Ekua-Bedua Hudson, a junior at American University studying Public Health, is passionate about combating food insecurity. She is the founder and president of The Food For Thought Foundation working to create educational and technological resources for food deserts. Emma hopes to use her knowledge of Public Health and the resources she's created and promoted through The Food For Thought Foundation to expand solutions to food insecurity to communities outside of her own.

Jonathan Muruako, a First-Generation Nigerian-American, is committed to increasing resources for first-generation students to pursue higher education. He received his bachelor’s in Biological Basis of Behaviour and completed master's degrees in Public Health and Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania as a Gates Millennium Scholar. Jonathan is currently working on his third master’s degree in Non-profit Leadership, concentrating in Social Entrepreneurship to help students overcome the college achievement gap. Jonathan is also developing Fitalyst which is a glanceable accountability tool for First-Gen students and their institutions, a tool he wished he and other First-Gen students always had.

Oluwamuyiwa Winifred (Winnie) Adebayo, a medical student at Rush Medical College, is dedicated to creating resources that serve marginalised communities navigating higher education and the medical field. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from South Carolina State University and has been a registered nurse since 2013. She also holds a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Miami. Winnie founded an online organisation in 2015 - Winie’s Student World (WSW), which brings aspiring and current international students together and provides mentorship and resources related to higher education, career development, and immigration. Recently, she co-founded an organisation – The AfroMedics – that seeks to address the shortage of African or African descent physicians through sharing information, resources, and mentorship.

Kianna Armstrong, a multi-disciplinary artist and designer studying architecture at the University of Southern California, is enthusiastic about exploring intersectional identities as a Black woman. She is passionate about using architecture to un-design inequities that manifest in the built environment. She is a co-founder of the organisation Architecture + Advocacy, in which she uses her background in architecture to give young people the tools to design grassroots change in their own neighbourhoods.

This scholarship is granted by The Legacy Lab Foundation, a non-profit part of Team One’s Legacy Lab, created to invest in leaders and organisations aiming to make a durable difference in the world. It is powered by The Giving Back Fund, an LA-based non-profit that facilitates charitable giving. To learn more about The Legacy Lab Foundation Scholarship, head to: The Giving Back Fund: The Legacy Lab Foundation.