FREEPORT — PossibilityU has won a $40,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a Facebook application for college-bound students.
The Freeport-based college counseling service said in a news release, the initial award could increase up to $100,000 as a result of the company’s entry into the College Knowledge Challenge that awards $2.5 million to create Facebook applications to help students before and during college.
Betsy Peters, the company’s CEO, said the award will help the company use a new data function of Facebook — called Graph Search — to help students find the right college.
The company’s current programs use a proprietary matching engine that uses 78 different criteria to match students with a college.
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