Global Impact Challenge: Out of these 10 non-profits four will get Rs 3 crore each from Google
Search giant Google has announced the names of the 10 finalists of its ‘Global Impact Challenge’ initiative that was launched in August this year. Four out of the 10 non-profits chosen will receive Rs 3 crore each and technical assistance from Google to complete their projects. One of the winners will be chosen through popular vote. All 10 finalists will get to pitch live in Delhi on October 31st, to the judges, who include Ram Shriram, Jacquelline Fuller, Anu Aga and Jayant Sinha. The three awardees will be selected based on potential impact, scalability and ingenuity.
Here are the 10 finalists and their projects, you can vote for four of them by clicking here, till the end of day (IST) on October 30th. Choose well, because you can’t change your mind after casting the vote.
1) Organization: Agastya International Foundation
Project: Network of motorbike science labs to educate rural kids
Over 70% of India’s children lack access to science and technology education, which is what fosters the problem-solving skills needed to succeed in today’s economy.
With a Global Impact Award, Agastya will address the lack of science equipment and digital resources for rural children by launching a network of motorbike science labs that are staffed by trained teachers and equipped with cutting-edge technology. Agastya will also train local teachers on how to incorporate hands-on science into their classrooms. Over the next three years, Agastya will teach the power of science education to children and teachers at 1,620 rural schools.
2) Organization: Shelter Associates
Project: Digital mapping to improve slum sanitation
Lack of sanitation infrastructure in urban slums leads to devastating effects on health, livelihood, safety and environment. In India, 400,000 children under age five die annually from diarrhoea. With a Global Impact Award, Shelter Associates will conduct digital mapping of urban slums to identify service gaps and inform better infrastructure planning and sanitation development. Shelter Associates will make these findings available online for partners, governments and civil societies to improve the efficiency and transparency of sanitation resources in slums. In three years, Shelter Associates will facilitate the construction of individual toilets to improve sanitation for 40,000 slum residents and create a digital mapping toolkit that can be used by partners to address health and sanitation issues nationally, and influence the National Urban Sanitation Policy in India.
3) Organization: Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group
Project name: Online marketplace to organize waste collection
The National Capital Region produces almost 8,000 metric tons of solid waste per day. Much of it is uncollected, burned or rotting, emitting toxins and gases, and polluting groundwater.
With a Global Impact Award, Chintan will develop an online marketplace and integrated mobile app to organize waste pickers and address the growing problem of trash in Delhi. This online platform will connect waste generators and waste recyclers to provide a socially and environmentally sustainable solution that improves the livelihood of waste handlers and curbs pollution. In three years, Chintan will connect 1,600 waste pickers with jobs from 200,000 waste generators, and manage 500 tons of Delhi’s trash every day.
4) Organization: Pratham Books
Project: Open source platform to create & translate children’s books
Nearly 50% of Indian 5th graders currently read at a 2nd grade level. This is due in part to a scarcity of books, and to a lack of reading material available in their language.
With a Global Impact Award, Pratham Books will provide kids with easy access to language-appropriate reading materials by building a collaborative, open platform that lets people share, translate and create children’s e-books. Over the next three years, this project will create 20,000 new e-books in a minimum of 25 languages and enable 200 million total book reads.
5) Organization: Digital Green
Project: Video hub to scale agricultural training
More than 53 percent of Indians work as farmers, yet most have difficulty sustaining a living due to social, economic and environmental pressures, as well as a lack of training and educational tools.
With a Global Impact Award, Digital Green will help farmers gain the agricultural skills they need to lower their costs and increase their productivity. By scaling a video hub and an online knowledge platform, Digital Green will train farmers to become community knowledge workers and enable them to share locally-relevant agricultural skills with their peers. Over the next three years, Digital Green will provide agricultural training to one million farmers across 10,000 villages.
6) Organization: Prayas Energy Group
Project: Monitoring dashboard to improve power supply quality
In India, people often face poor power supply in the form of frequent interruptions, blackouts and low voltage levels. Urban areas receive, on average, only 10 to 18 hours of energy per day, and rural areas only four to 14 hours.
With a Global Impact Award, Prayas Energy Group will improve power distribution quality in India by deploying a network of real-time sensors to monitor power supply provided by utility companies. Consumers, civil societies, researchers and regulatory commissions will have open access to this information and will use it to increase accountability of electric utilities. Over three years, Prayas Energy Group will collect data from 2,500 sites across India and make this data accessible online. Prayas Energy Group will use it to hold utility providers responsible for improved services.
7) Organization: Breakthrough
Project: Digital toolkit to prevent gender-based violence
Violence against women and girls in India is widespread. According to a UN study, nearly 40% of women in India have experienced sexual or physical violence.
With a Global Impact Award, Breakthrough will reduce gender-based violence by launching and scaling a data-driven digital toolkit to enable anyone to launch an effective anti-violence campaign. Over the next three years, Breakthrough will reach 5 million people with information on the prevalence against women and what they can do to stop it.
8) Organization: Going to School Fund
Project: Mobile games & books to teach kids entrepreneurial skills
Each year, more than 42% of Indian students drop out of secondary school and 10 million people enter India’s workforce without the proper business skills they need to succeed in today’s economy.
Going to School Fund will use a Global Impact Award to create open source mobile games that teach critical entrepreneurship skills to India’s children. These games will provide lessons in business, economics, teamwork and communications to students across the country. In three years, Going to School Fund will build 21 entrepreneurship games in four languages, reaching 320,000 children from underprivileged backgrounds.
9) Organization: Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy
Project: Apps to connect citizens with the government
Over 390 million Indians currently reside in cities where there is a disconnect between elected government officials and the people they represent.
With a Global Impact Award, Janaagraha will create online and mobile apps that connect citizens to their government representatives in urban India. These apps will allow users to provide faster, more detailed feedback directly to their representatives, helping to close information gaps. In three years, Janaagraha will connect 15,00,000 citizens to governments across three metropolitan cities in India.
10) Organization: Social Awareness, Newer Alternatives (SANA)
Project: Integrated water & sanitation system to support healthy villages
Throughout India, villages lack access to clean drinking water and toilets. This spreads deadly diseases and causes unsafe living environments.
With a Global Impact Award, SANA will combine solar-powered micro-ionizing water purification and biodigesting technology to improve water and sanitation infrastructure for rural villages. These systems will purify local water sources to provide clean drinking water and the waste water generated will power new community toilets. Over three years, SANA will provide 54 million liters of safe drinking water to residents, providing biodigesting toilets to 10 villages across India, and improved health conditions for 25,000 people annually.
