PreventSA Incubator: Cohort 1
Building the Next Generation of Sexual Assault Prevention Solutions
The first cohort of the PreventionSA Incubator brings together a select group of innovators developing bold, tech-enabled approaches to prevent sexual assault among teenagers in the United States.
Why this cohort exists
Sexual violence prevention remains dramatically under-resourced relative to the scale of the problem, and many promising ideas struggle to move from concept to real-world testing.
The PreventSA Incubator exists to close that gap by helping innovators rapidly test new approaches, generate early evidence, and build the partnerships needed for scale.
Cohort 1 focuses on solutions that can reach young people directly through technology or social platforms that do not rely on adoption by traditional institutions like schools, workplaces, or government.
The lessons from this cohort will help chart a clearer path for how bold prevention ideas move from early insight to real-world impact.
Meet the innovators
The following teams were selected through a competitive process based on the promise of their ideas, the strength of their leadership, and the potential for their projects to contribute to reductions in sexual assault at scale.
Kaisa Project
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A creator-partnership model that works with leading online gaming streamers to introduce conversations about sexual assault prevention with their audiences. The project will collaborate with up to 15 creators to develop short-form video and livestream segments that model respectful behavior, challenge harmful norms, and equip young audiences (particularly boys ages 11-14) with practical language and scripts for navigating peer interactions online and offline.
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Whether streamer-led conversations that address sexual assault can shift audience sentiment, increase engagement with prevention messaging, and provide young viewers with behavioral examples they can model in their own interactions.
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The rise of playing and watching online gaming in young boys has created new opportunities for developing friendships and social skills. With over 97% of young boys either watching streamers or playing video games often with friends (Pew Research Center, 2024), this has created a new way for them to learn, connect, and form opinions on the world around them. According to the CDC, some of the major influential factors in whether an individual will perpetrate include societal norms related to sexual violence, acceptance of violent behaviors, and hypermasculinity. We believe that in the digital age, the communities formed around video games can be a heavily influential factor in the formation of these attitudes and opinions in young boys. These attitudes then impact young girls and women, with 65% of girls and women who play video games experiencing toxicity from male players, including 12% receiving threats of rape (Bryter-Global 2023 Women in Gaming Report). Given the known connection between attitudes of sexual violence and perpetrating sexual violence, we believe that unhealthy online gaming communities could be exasperating beliefs tied to the increase likelihood of in-person perpetration.
Streamers occupy uniquely influential positions within these communities, shaping language, humor, and group norms in real time. By embedding prevention messaging within trusted creator relationships rather than institutional settings, the project leverages peer and parasocial influence to make empathy, respect, and nonviolence socially visible and aspirational. Prior evidence from large-scale public-awareness campaigns and norm-change interventions suggests that repeated exposure to credible messengers can meaningfully shift attitudes and behaviors at scale.
is this ok?
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ito (is this ok?) is an anonymous, real-time consent reflection tool designed for teens and young adults navigating ambiguous interpersonal situations. When someone is considering making a move – like kissing or going further physically or continuing when signals are unclear – the tool guides them through a short reflection process that helps them interpret contextual cues, assess whether consent is present, and identify respectful next actions. The system includes built-in “Stop Moments” that flag high-risk scenarios (e.g., intoxication, prior refusal) and prompt users to pause and reconsider before proceeding.
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Whether introducing brief decision-point friction immediately before risky interactions can create meaningful behavioral pauses, improve recognition of non-consensual situations, and reduce the likelihood that young people proceed when consent is uncertain – because a primary driver of peer sexual harm isn't malice, it's momentum combined with poor signal-reading, and a well-timed reality check could interrupt that pattern.
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Behavioral science research shows that decision friction, cooling-off periods, and mandatory pauses can significantly influence behavior in high-stakes contexts. The gap in sexual harm prevention is that education happens in classrooms, but decisions happen outside of school. Teens may know the definition of consent, but they may not apply it in the moment when momentum, pressure, or rationalization takes over. ito operates in that gap.
Early problem validation indicates that young people frequently seek advice online after confusing interpersonal situations, suggesting recurring patterns of uncertainty around consent interpretation. I scraped teen-specific Reddit posts (r/teenagers, r/datingadvice, etc.) where people were asking for help with sexual situations. The majority of questions fell into a fixed set of categories: "They said maybe — does that mean yes?", "They're drunk but seem into it", "They went quiet, should I keep going?", "We've done this before so it should be fine now, right?". These aren't abstract edge cases. These are the actual moments of confusion teens are experiencing, and they're posting about them after the situation already happened. By operating at the exact moment decisions are being considered, ito aims to close the gap between knowing and doing.
A working prototype has demonstrated the technical feasibility of combining rule-based safety triggers with AI-supported reflection prompts, creating a low-friction intervention designed for the gray-area decision points where many harmful interactions begin. The next phase is validating that the Stop Moment actually creates behavioral pause with real teens, that the tone works for the target audience, and that people who use it demonstrate better consent practices months later.
Teach Us Consent
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Teach Us Consent is launching a youth-focused social media initiative designed to reach young teens where they are – online. The project will develop engaging, relatable, and educational content that equips teens with practical knowledge about consent, healthy intimacy, and respectful relationships, while directing audiences to a broader set of accessible educational resources and tools on our website. Building on a proven large-scale communications model developed in Australia, the initiative aims to normalize conversations about consent within youth culture and make prevention knowledge widely visible, relevant, and actionable.
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Whether delivering highly relatable and engaging digital content on consent and sex education can strengthen young people’s ability to navigate healthy intimacy – particularly among adolescents who may otherwise lack clear guidance about consent and interpersonal boundaries.
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Peer-to-peer sexual assault among adolescents remains a significant and under-addressed challenge, with research pointing to the influence of harmful gender norms, pornography-influenced expectations, and gaps in early relationship education.
Teach Us Consent brings a demonstrated track record of large-scale impact, having previously delivered a social media initiative in Australia that reached millions of young people and contributed to major policy and education reforms. By adapting this model to the U.S. context and delivering consistent, evidence-informed messaging directly through the platforms young people already use, the project seeks to accelerate norm change and expand access to prevention education at scale.
What the incubator provides
PreventSA creates the conditions for our cohort to succeed
Funding
Initial funding to support prototype development and testing.
Group Learning
Peer sharing, group learning, and access to expert advisors.
Follow-on Support
Visibility, support, and potential follow-on funding through Demo Day.
Engage with the cohort
Organizations, researchers, and funders interested in collaborating with cohort teams are encouraged to connect.
Opportunities include:
Engaging youth in your community to test prototypes and help refine concepts
Research or evaluation partnerships
Supporting future innovation cohorts
About the incubator
The Fund to Prevent Sexual Assault is the first philanthropic fund focused entirely on preventing sexual assault at scale.
The PreventSA Incubator supports innovators developing bold prevention solutions.
By funding, advising, and accelerating promising ideas, the PreventSA Incubator aims to expand the prevention field’s pipeline of testable, scalable solutions – seeding a new generation of approaches capable of changing the trajectory of sexual assault in our lifetime.