Global South Digital Innovation Challenge
South-South Cooperation, coupled with embracing new and innovative approaches, present an opportunity to respond to the current health emergency and far reaching socio-economic headwinds. Digital innovation reduces information and transaction costs, improves service delivery, creates new jobs, generates new revenue streams and helps conserve resources. Since the beginning of the pandemic, innovators have been responding to the crisis with a progressive approach.
Goals
The Global South COVID-19 Digital Innovation Challenge aims to build a network of champions in developing-country ecosystems to:
- accelerate the response to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic;
- grasp the current innovation impetus and bring innovative digital solutions into international development, and reach out to entities which are usually in innovation’s frontlines activities;
- leverage South-South cooperation networks, platforms and funding mechanisms to achieve impact at scale through sharing and replicating selected innovations; and
- provide open access to resources from the international expert community and build entrepreneurship capabilities for innovators in governments, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and start-up companies, research institutions and academia, and CSOs.
Eligibility
- Only legally registered organizations/institutions from developing countries
- The challenge is open to governments, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, private sector and start-ups, research institutions, academia, and civil society organization (CSOs).
Applying organizations/institutions must have an existing project or minimum viable product (MVP) [2] that:
- promotes South-South cooperation by replicating or scaling up existing innovations with a potential partner/country in the South,
- demonstrates a new innovative project/prototype, outlining its potential for scaling up through South-South cooperation, and
- is a digital solution
Benefits
- Winning proposals will be provided with seed funding up to USD 25 000 (additional term and conditions apply) to implement/improve/scale up their proposed solution(s), with mentorship and training support, in a new market (developing country) by end of April 2022.
Deadline for applications is the 15th of July 2021.
