Deadline: 31-May-22
Are you from a UN organization, nonprofit, social enterprise, or a university with a ready-to-scale digital solution? Apply today to join the Digital X Solutions Catalogue.
Digital X is a Partnerships for Scale Programme developed by UNDP Chief Digital Office to find, match, and scale proven and innovative digital solutions around the world.
UNDP’s Digital X programme has created the opportunity for ten ambitious projects to scale in terms of both impact and geographical reach. Now, with continued funding by the Government of Japan, Digital X will build on that success to launch a new Digital X ‘Partnerships for Scale Programme’ that brings proven, ready-to-scale digital solutions to UNDP and the partners.
In preparation for this year’s challenge, the Digital X team worked with UNDP’s Global Policy Network to conduct a systematic scan of digital needs at country level.
Goals
This year’s programme builds on two long-standing goals.
- The primary focus of Digital X has been to take proven digital innovations and scale them,
- The secondary focus is to foster for UNDP and its government partners the capacity to widely leverage the plethora of ready-to-scale digital tools at their disposal, rather than reinvent the wheel.
Thematical Areas
These were synthesised into a series of Digital X Global Challenges that include the thematic areas of
- Health
- Crisis Response
- Climate
- Inclusive Growth and Gender.
Why Apply to Digital X?
- Introductions to UNDP teams and governments in the 170 countries where UNDP operates.
- Opportunity to partner with UNDP teams on projects of up to USD 100,000 with adhoc mentoring support.
- Optional guidance on becoming a Digital Public Good and a chance for new funding opportunities.
What Problems is Digital X trying to solve?
They have designed Digital X to focus on the following problems:
- Governments and UNDP global network urgently need digital solutions: A well-designed digital solution can impact millions of lives and support populations in new and innovative ways.
- Building digital solutions from nothing rarely works: Most digital solutions built by development professionals either reinvent the wheel, fail to adhere to the Principles for Digital Development, or fail to achieve meaningful impact.
- Lack of scaling what already works: The good news is that proven and readyto-scale digital solutions – that have scaled nationwide or across multiple countries – do exist.
Eligibility Criteria
- All UN agencies, social enterprises, nonprofits, and universities with digital solutions can apply.
- To be considered for selection, a digital solution must:
- be ready-to-scale (i.e. has a long-term owner, is sustainable, passes a tech review for safety, has scaled widely with target populations in at least one country, and has progressed past the idea or concept phase);
- Have a clear problem statement and unique value proposition;
- Have a demonstrated impact; and
- Demonstrate a commitment to ‘do no harm’ and embed data privacy considerations.
For more information, visit https://digitalx.undp.org/