After winning $1.3 million in scholarships, Christopher Gray founded Scholly, an app that helps students find scholarships. Since then, Gray has been in the spotlight for his innovations. His impact in the social entrepreneurship space was recognized in 2016 when he topped the Forbes 30 Under 30 List. He also holds the distinction of being one of Oprah’s Inaugural Super Soul 100 honorees, a list curated by Oprah herself to highlight her favorite people. In addition to these accolades, Gray received the prestigious 2016 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award.
Now, Christopher is teaming with education solutions company Sallie Mae to help students and parents connect to millions of dollars in scholarships for higher education. This is a timely for November, National Scholarship Month. For more information visit myscholly.com and salliemae.com
Now, Christopher is teaming with education solutions company Sallie Mae to help students and parents connect to millions of dollars in scholarships for higher education. This is a timely for November, National Scholarship Month. For more information visit myscholly.com and salliemae.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Okay, what do scholarships and the popular TV show Shark Tank have in common?
00:04 Well, a special app to help students.
00:06 Good morning Mr. Gray, how you doing?
00:08 I'm doing great.
00:10 Alright, this is such an important topic for a lot of kids, especially right now, that are out there looking for scholarships.
00:17 Why is it so important to have someone help them?
00:20 Yes, because the money is so hard to find, man.
00:24 There's hundreds of millions of dollars in scholarships that go unclaimed each year because students just don't know it exists.
00:29 40% of families didn't even apply for scholarships at all last year.
00:33 Again, because they don't know it exists.
00:35 And that's really where Scholarly comes in to really address that issue of making this money available, helping students find all this free money.
00:41 Alright, well tell us about Scholarly. What is this all about?
00:44 Yes, so Scholarly is a mobile and web app that instantly helps students find money for college.
00:49 We've helped students secure over $100 million in scholarships so far.
00:54 And we've also, the app is free to use in the App Store.
00:56 And we turn the months it would take to find all these scholarships into minutes.
01:00 We're ensuring that you're getting some master's scholarships that are tailored to you.
01:05 Okay, so how does it work? Does it work where I just punch in the school I want to go to?
01:09 Do I tell them my area? How does this all go?
01:13 Yes, so you put in a little information, takes literally a minute.
01:16 And then you're instantly matched with the different scholarships you qualify for, right?
01:19 The app is super simple, easy to use.
01:22 It's for high school students, current college students, grad students, returning students across the board.
01:26 And, you know, it's simple, easy to use interface.
01:29 We're constantly sending out user notifications about new opportunities they get.
01:33 The app is free and you get it in the App Store for iPhone, Android, or you can sign up on the web at MyScholarly.com.
01:39 I like that. Okay, let's talk about Sally Mae helping kids pay for school. How does this all work too?
01:44 Yes, so our priority as Sally Mae being an education solutions company is to prioritize free money first, right?
01:50 We really want to make sure students, their first decision, their first thought is how can I, let me get,
01:55 let me make sure I understand what free money is available. And that's where Scally, that's where Scally comes in.
02:00 So Scally by Sally Mae ensure that students can instantly, quickly find all this money that's available to them
02:06 and be able to pay for college. And we, and Sally Mae do have a loan product,
02:09 but we want that to be gap financing for what you don't have.
02:12 So we want you to prioritize looking for as much free money as possible, you know, first.
02:16 And that's kind of what we're prioritizing, just kind of going forward.
02:20 Yeah. How this all come about, was it through, was it you looking for money for your education
02:24 or was it just someone else looking for it and say, hey, listen, I got this plan.
02:28 Yeah, I won a million dollar scholarship to go to school myself when I was young.
02:32 And I realized that a lot of people kind of dealing with the same things.
02:35 And I just wanted to make, you know, a way to just leverage technology to help as many people as possible.
02:41 You know, now being at Sally Mae, we are able to help even more students across the nation with more reach and more resource.
02:47 So we're really excited about that. Like, OK, I got to ask you, Shark Tank, how'd that come about?
02:52 What went on there? I got to deal with Damon John Lurie, two sharks.
02:57 And it was so really fun, really. I was in college, ironically, my senior year in college.
03:02 So that was very kind of nerve wracking, but I was successful.
03:05 Got to deal with sharks. And Damon and Lurie have been awesome.
03:08 The big fight that happened that went viral. But, you know, it was a good experience for me.
03:12 And I think, you know, it's really what puts Scali on the map. I like that. That's awesome.
03:16 Hey, any other tips for parents and students out there that are looking for that scholarship money and looking to go to school?
03:22 Just start early. Start now. Get the app. It's National Scholarship Month.
03:25 We really want to want people to understand. Start the app. Get the start the process early.
03:30 You don't want to wait till the last minute. You want to be able to kind of prioritize getting that free money quickly and available.
03:35 And if you want to find the app, you can find it on myScali.com or you can find it in the app store.
03:40 It's probably on an Android. I'll tell you, Mr. Gray, this is such a great app to do,
03:45 especially as we said, kids are looking to go on with this education, but they they don't know how.
03:50 And they always say, I don't have the money. Well, the money's available right there.
03:55 So thank you so much. I like it. Thanks for joining us this morning. Thank you.
04:01 [end]