Deadline: 31 January 2020
Applications are now open for “Innovation for Peace and Justice – How can displaced populations access affordable and quality services that are essential to their safety and wellbeing?” Challenge with an aim to find and support innovative solutions that will connect refugees and forcibly displaced populations with enduring and effective legal, healthcare, and education services.
To do so, the Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity welcomes applications from innovators and makers around the world that will:
- Increase access to reliable and cost-effective legal support
- Reduce health risks among displaced populations through expanded access to healthcare and improved water and sanitation infrastructure that ensures safe delivery of drinking water and disposal of waste
- Reduce barriers to education and skills training for displaced youth
The world is currently seeing the highest levels of forced displacement on record. There are now almost 71 million people who have been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations – including nearly 26 million refugees, half of whom are under the age of 18. Worldwide, one person is forcibly displaced every two seconds. To ensure that this rapidly increasing number of people are able to lead healthy and productive lives for themselves, equitable access to services such as legal protection programs, healthcare, and education is key.
Refugees and forcibly displaced populations face a host of challenges throughout their migratory journey. Many forcibly displaced people, especially those that leave their home countries entirely, have to navigate complex legal systems with limited access to legal assistance and representation. Millions of those forcibly displaced end up living in places containing poor water and sanitation infrastructure, and are subsequently vulnerable to significant health risks like communicable diseases and malnutrition. Further, of the 7.4 million school-age refugee children globally, more than half are not in school – with 63 percent enrolled in primary school, 24 percent in secondary school, and only 3 percent in higher education.
Globally, one in every 108 people is either an asylum-seeker, a refugee, or internally displaced. In their increasingly interconnected world, forced displacement cannot be treated as a short-term humanitarian issue, nor can it be addressed by just one country or sector.
The Global Maker Challenge is an online open-innovation platform that offers an opportunity for ‘makers’ and innovators to connect and collaborate, wherever they are in the world, to solve real-world problems affecting people’s lives. Leveraging manufacturing innovation to provide viable and deployable solutions for the world’s most pressing issues, it invites world-leading manufacturers and organisations to adopt challenges, provide mentorship, and help solve real-world problems.
Benefits
The Global Maker Challenge will award winners with prizes of value up to USD 1,000,000 in prizes.
Scoring Criteria
- Alignment: The solution addresses the challenge that has been set forth.
- Potential for Impact: The planned implementation of the solution has the potential to impact lives.
- Scalability: The solution can be grown and scaled to affect the lives of more people.
- Innovative Approach: This is a new technology, a new application of a technology, a new business model, or a new process for solving the challenge.
- Feasibility: It is feasible to implement the solution, and the team has a plan for the solution to sustain itself financially.
For more information, visit https://makingprosperity.com/all-cohorts