Jason Shah was a 15-year-old high school student in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, when he started INeedAPencil.com, a venture offering free online courses to help students with their SAT university entrance exams.

He decided to act after seeing first-hand the link between low incomes and college admittance when visiting a middle-school class in 2005.

“It’s crazy that the students who need the most resources have the least access. I wanted to change that,” says Mr Shah, who started the website with backing from his parents of $10,000 and the support of a tech-savvy friend. He continued to expand the site after starting his own degree at Harvard University in 2007, using sponsorship and a further $15,000 he won in a student business competition. Colleges and scholarship programmes promote the site in return for featuring on the website. About 50,000 students have now used INeedAPencil.com, which Mr Shah last year sold to CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit educational body.