1. Richard Margolin is the founder and CEO of RoboKind, an education technology company that designs and builds facially expressive robots to facilitate learning for individuals with autism.

2. RoboKind research shows that students on the autism spectrum engage 87.5% of the time with their robots, compared to 2%-3% with a human therapist alone.

3. James Henningson is the outgoing president of the Dallas Makerspace, a public, member-driven makerspace located in Carrollton with 1,400 members and 18 labs.

4. Ben Magill is the Associate Vice Chancellor of Economic Opportunity at Dallas College and recently secured an $8.8 million grant from the US Economic Development Administration’s Good Job Challenge.

5. Amanda Dudley is the Executive Director of the Principal Impact Collaborative at UNT Dallas, which aims to improve public school outcomes and address high rates of principal turnover. Luke Hejl is the co-founder and CEO of TimelyMD, a virtual platform providing on-demand medical and mental health care to college students. Karen Meadows is the director of the Simulation Center at UNTHSC, turning a training space into a reality.

Richard exhibited selflessness and dedication to causes greater than themselves. The individuals who have been honored with this prestigious award are described as philanthropists, or those who advocate for human welfare or social reform.

Founded in 2011, its innovative facially expressive 14 robots help children with autism spectrum disorder hone and eventually master basic social-emotional skills. RoboKind took things to the next level with a remote-learning version of its K-12 program, which has been endorsed by the Council of Administrators of Special Education. More than 400 districts now use the platform.

Finalists: iStation, Perot Museum of Nature and Science, Plano Independent School District, ScholarShot, and UWorld

Richard Margolin is part of the team that began dreaming up what it would mean to give children a cost-effective, inclusive education by using robots. RoboKind, where Margolin serves as chief technology officer, worked with experts in the autism community and schools around the world to develop two products, robots4autism and robots4STEM, and curricula to pair with each. 

“As a company that is breaking ground in the autism space, we had to find early adopters willing to take the risk of being the first schools,” said Margolin. RoboKind had years of academic research behind it, but schools were afraid of the risk, according to Margolin.