Deadline: 25-Nov-21
The BRAC Social Innovation Lab is launching the ‘GLOBAL INNOVATION CHALLENGE’ inviting transformative business innovations that leverage technology to improve the competitiveness of the RMG sector and safeguard the jobs of female RMG workers.
BRAC Social Innovation Lab (SIL), along with H&M Foundation (H&MF), and The Asia Foundation are collaboratively working under the Collective Impact (CI) Initiative, aiming at further enabling Ready-Made Garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh.
Themes
The Global Innovation Challenge aims to select RMG innovations around the world to safeguard the jobs of women in the RMG industry in Bangladesh while ensuring the competitiveness of factories. Entrepreneurs can submit ideas answering two key questions: ‘How can they enhance factory competitiveness?’ and ‘How can they safeguard the jobs of female garment workers?’ under the following 5 themes.
- Automation and Efficiency: Business innovations which aim to improve the existing methods/process of production by making it faster/cost-efficient through introducing a new and attainable technology, while being easy to adopt for women workers, fall under this theme.
- Sustainability and Circular Fashion: This category of the Innovation Challenge invites innovative business ideas that promote sustainability and circularity. Circularity is not just a buzzword anymore; it has become a crucial agenda in the ready-made garments industry in the last decade.
- Product Design, Diversification, and Raw Material: This category seeks business ideas that will aim to diversify the products that the industry manufactures through different kinds of raw materials production, designing tools and also developing backward linkages.
- Skills Development and Women’s Careers: This category of the challenge will call for business innovations that seek to provide upskilling, re-skilling, and training support to women RMG workers to help them excel in their jobs in this sector and progress in their careers. These skills will be specific to the RMG industry and can vary, from creating innovative training modules which will have easier accessibility for these workers, to connecting trainers and trainees through digital platforms.
- Enabling Environment: This category of the innovation challenge invites business innovations which seek to create an “enabling environment” through a multi layered ecosystem of support inside and outside their home, and nurture their career aspirations. These innovations will aim to address the gender-based challenges that women face as individuals both at work and outside work.
Benefits
- Pilot Grant up to $ 30,000
- Mentorship
- Incubation
- Market Linkage
Eligibility Criteria
- Any group with 2 to 3 members with innovative ideas, entrepreneurial attitude and commitment to take their idea to the next level.
- Any existing Startups/ Social Enterprises with bold ideas or new features that can be an extension of their existing initiatives.
For more information, visit http://stitchforrmg.brac.net/innovation-challenge/