Application Deadline: 12 February 2024 at 23:59 UTC.
As global humanitarian needs continue to rise, there is an increasing demand to respond with innovative, impactful and scalable solutions powered by mobile and digital technology. On 11 December, the GSMA opened the GSMA Innovation Fund for Humanitarian Challenges. The Fund will provide grants as well as additional non-financial and technical support to projects that leverage mobile and digital technology to pilot and scale solutions that address humanitarian challenges in low- and middle-income countries. The specific objective of this new Fund is to test innovative use cases, partnerships, and business models that can improve access to sustainable digital-enabled solutions for those who are affected by – or vulnerable to – humanitarian challenges.
Eligibility
- Applicants whose organisations are female-founded and/or female-led and/or have good presentation of women at all levels.
- Applicants whose organisations have a strong presence in their country of implementation and a commitment to supporting, upskilling and promoting local staff.
- Preference will be given to local and community-led organisations founded by local people who possess a deep understanding of local context. This includes refugee-led organisations.
- Applicants who have partnerships with relevant local stakeholders (e.g., community-based organisations) to deliver the project on the ground.
- Applicants who have a clear understanding of how their solution improves preparedness or response capacity to humanitarian challenges and have proactively taken steps to set targets and systematically measure these impacts.
- Applicants that have not received prior FCDO grant funding through the GSMA.
- Applicants that have received grant funding from the GSMA in the past will need to demonstrate what would be the additionality of the new grant.
The Program is looking for projects that demonstrate:
- How mobile-enabled technology can be innovatively applied to support communities to anticipate and prepare for crises.
- How mobile-enabled solutions can be inclusive and widespread.
- Which business models enable mobile/digital solutions to be adopted sustainably and at scale.
- What role mobile operators and other digital actors can play in developing, testing, delivering these solutions, supporting proven interventions to go to scale.
- What partnerships at local and regional levels are required for improving and enabling conditions (infrastructure, access to mobile, regulation, domestic support) so that innovative digital solutions
- An understanding of the policy and regulatory issues in the region and a clear understanding of the regulations that will govern project implementation.
- An understanding of the mobile connectivity landscape in the region of implementation.
The Fund is open to applications from for-profit small and growing enterprises (commercially viable start-ups, small and medium enterprises, and social enterprises with up to 250 employees).
Benefits
- Successful projects will receive a grant of between £100,000 and £250,000 to scale their innovation over a 15 to 18 month period.
For More Information:
Visit the Official Webpage of the GSMA Innovation Fund for Humanitarian Challenges