Scholar recognised on Female Founders 500 list

  • March 27, 2026
Scholar recognised on Female Founders 500 list

Alexandra Grigore has been named in Inc. Magazine's Female Founders 500 list

Alexandra embodies that every day, driving the partnerships and strategy that bring inclusive digital identity to the communities that need it most.

Simprints

Gates Cambridge Impact Prize winner Alexandra Grigore has been recognised on the 2026 Inc. Magazine Female Founders 500 list.

The list honours women who are building meaningful organisations and leading with purpose. Alexandra is Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Simprints, the world’s first open-source biometric ID platform with privacy at its core. Her recognition comes for “achieving more than one million enrollments for the nonprofit and partnering with GAVI to launch a malaria vaccination programme”.

Alexandra [2012] co-founded the non-profit company at Cambridge with two fellow Gates Cambridge Scholars, Toby Norman and Dan Storisteanu and Toby’s brother Tristam. Alexandra met Toby and Dan in her first week at Cambridge during the Gates Cambridge orientation.

To date, over 3.5m people are enrolled with Simprints and the company has been working in 17 countries. It builds technology to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development, the aim being to ensure that “every vaccine, every dollar, every public good reaches the people who need them most”.

Simprints says of Alexandra’s recognition: “Alexandra embodies that every day, driving the partnerships and strategy that bring inclusive digital identity to the communities that need it most. Congratulations, Alexandra. This is well deserved.”  

Latest News

What should the future of AI be in a fractured world?

A new report brings together discussions by leading thinkers in the areas of AI and Human Judgement in Decision-Making, Innovation and Inclusion in Technological Systems, Resilience in a Polycrisis Era […]

Prestigious award to help fight future flu pandemics

A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been selected for a prestigious award for her work on how influenza viruses of animal origin – such as avian and swine flu – are […]

Policymaking to enable more affordable housing

Una Corbett’s MPhil focuses on finding solutions to the housing crisis which is affecting many countries, including the US, UK and Canada.  “I’m really interested in housing supply which is a vital […]

Understanding the complexity of PTSD

How do you improve treatments for patients who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Nimrod Hertz [2022] and Alicja Podgorski, Gates Cambridge Scholars from different cohorts, have combined forces […]