AI4Resilience Challenge Announces Participants

The AI4Resilience Challenge is in full swing! Twenty-three organizations have been selected as Challenge Participants. They will be attending concept development workshops to further refine their ideas and attend open learning sessions open to the public. For more information on the AI4Resilience Challenge, visit our program website.

Check our program website and our social media channels for more information on Open Learning Sessions you can attend in the near future.

If you are interested in contributing to the Challenge and the solutions as a judge, mentor, partner, or co-sponsor, please reach out to [email protected].

Challenge Participants

Bangladesh Angels (BAN) is the first and largest angel investment network in Bangladesh, with the mission to connect startups and SMEs with smart capital via institutional and individual investors, both local and international. It started its journey in 2018 as a partnership between Aavishkaar, an impact investor, the Dutch Global Good Fund, a DFI, and a group of local startup ecosystem leaders committed to bridging the early-stage financing gap for entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. In 3+ years, it’s helped raise US$6M in investments for 37 companies in Bangladesh across various sectors.

Betterstories Limited is a private sector initiative fostering socially-responsible, innovation-driven entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. Through our work over the past 13 years, we have seen that Humanitarian actors in Bangladesh are fragmented. Expert knowledge remains unshared. Local innovations are siloed and buried deep within small pockets. A big opportunity is lost for these to be scaled and have a greater impact. BetterStories believes that large-scale social change comes from radical cross-sector collaboration and coordination. Stand-alone and isolated interventions do not create transformational shifts.

Bonhishikha – unlearn gender is a feminist organization committed to ensuring equality and justice across all spectrums in Bangladesh. We aim to facilitate safe spaces: to advocate for gender and sexuality rights; promote uniform access to opportunities; produce counter-narratives of diverse experiences through storytelling; and, raise awareness of gender-based discrimination.

Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC) has been standing by young people in Bangladesh for over a decade, equipping them with leadership, professional, and entrepreneurial skills, and enabling them to have a high impact in the public, private, and civil sectors by bringing about positive changes in society, and contributing to the nation’s prosperity and the issue of sustainability. In a world fragmented by intolerance, uncertainty, and injustice, BYLC works with youth from diverse backgrounds, nurturing empathy, tolerance, and inclusiveness, and strengthening social cohesion and peace.

CARE seeks a world of hope, inclusion, and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and all people live in dignity and security. CARE has been in Bangladesh since 1949. CARE Bangladesh amplifies the voices of the poor and marginalized in ways that influence public opinion, development practice, and policy at all levels. CARE’s holistic approach is reflected across the breadth of programming: covering livelihoods and income generation; health, hygiene, and sanitation, nutrition, sexual and reproductive health; governance, transparency, and accountability; women’s empowerment and ending gender-based violence; labor rights; market linkages and private sector engagement; resilience, disaster risk reduction emergency response.

Central Foundation for International and Strategic Studies (CFISS) is a state-of-the-art research organization from Bangladesh which specializes in new dimensional security issues. Our main aim is to work with regional and international institutions on security sector transformation and rights-based development and encourage them to see the relevance of capacity building for their work. CFISS provides non-partisan, independent, well-researched analyses and inputs to diverse decision-makers in governments. We encourage voices from all quarters to push normative boundaries, bring new ideas into the policy discourse, and provide a platform for the new generation of thinkers.

Field Ready was founded by professionals in development aid, humanitarian relief, technical services, design, and engineering. Our combined experience totals many decades in developing countries and disaster-stricken areas, as well as various technical skills. Taking hard-earned lessons from places like the Horn of Africa and Central Asia, we’ve borrowed from the best of Silicon Valley to conceive a meaningful and transformational approach to the challenges of humanitarian relief and working in the most remote and challenging places on the planet.

Foundation for Disaster Forum (FDF) is a network of 94 organizations and individuals focusing on alternative perspectives for disaster management. FDF also works on climate change, environmental issues, and humanitarian response. FDF conducts research, develops, and shares information, education, and communication (IEC) materials with member organizations including LNGOs, NGOs, CBOs, and media on preparedness & awareness of humanitarian issues. FDF also acts as a platform to share knowledge and experience with organizations and works to create a common network between its stakeholders, and capacity building of NGOs, INGOs on relevant issues through publications, trainings, and workshops.

iFarmer Limited is a digital agriculture platform that nurtures the vision to build Bangladesh’s most efficient and largest agri-financing and supply chain platform while improving the lives of farmers, retailers, businesses and consumers across the agricultural value chain in an impactful manner.

Impact Hub Dhaka is a part of the global Impact Hub Network that engages 24,000+entrepreneurs and innovators in 100+ locations across 60+ countries, among which 90% address one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2020, Impact Hub Dhaka has been designing and managing co-working spaces, mentoring, startup support programs, ecosystem-building events, policy, and advocacy. The team has supported 70+ social entrepreneurs through local programs and engaged with 1000+ people through capacity-building and community events.

inSights is a social enterprise founded on an ethical and professional approach to developing creative ideas that challenge the sector’s DRR, humanitarian, and gender status quo. Our priority objectives are to work for a more localized and equitable humanitarian system based on knowledge and professional competencies. We want to become a global standard-bearer for excellence founded on qualified and creative concepts, knowledge products, and services that encourage more ethical and effective disaster risk reduction and humanitarian action. We are dedicated to fostering cross-sector relationships, enhancing humanitarian efficiency and effectiveness, and empowering local actors.

Inspira is a consulting and implementation services firm working in nascent, early-stage industries of Bangladesh offering market research, enterprise building support, early-stage startup incubation, and investor matchmaking support. Inspira works with several multilateral & bilateral development partners, UN agencies, and international NGOs in undertaking research, advisory services, and multi-year program implementation.

iSocial is a for-profit social enterprise, serving B2B clients to reach out to the B2C clients at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) cost-effectively with a network of young women and men entrepreneurs. iSocial brings data insights to B2B actors for tracking business performance and making strategic moves. iSocial promotes entrepreneurship, especially women’s entrepreneurship with appropriate service design and data analytics. iSocial offers digital solutions for making the BoP market efficient. iSocial operates with three strategic business units: DataSense, Shujog, and ImpacTech.

Kaizen CRS is a consultancy firm based in Bangladesh. We work with the Government, Development Agencies, and Private Sector to build sustainable solutions that positively impact people’s lives. We are working on an idea to facilitate the expansion of regional frugal solutions for mass adoption.

LightCastle Partners is a business consulting firm in Bangladesh. They focus on creating data-driven opportunities for growth and impact. They’ve consulted and collaborated with a variety of partners, including development partners, public sector, and private organizations. LightCastle promotes inclusive economic growth that positively changes people’s lives at scale.

Established in 2008, mPower Social Enterprises Limited has codesigned, developed, and deployed more than 300 ICT solutions and services across development sectors for and with the governments, UN agencies, donor organizations, and international NGOs in Bangladesh and 17 other developing countries from the global south. Specializing in open source technologies, mPower strives to solve development challenges by harnessing the power of ICT and innovation.

SAJIDA Foundation is a value-driven non-profit which embodies the principle of corporate philanthropy, with 51% shareholding of Renata Ltd, one of the fastest pharmaceutical and animal health product companies in Bangladesh. Founded in 1993, SAJIDA’s operation in Bangladesh has touched over 6 million individuals through multi-sectoral development programs with a key focus on poverty alleviation, healthcare, climate change, mental health, financial services and specialized healthcare enterprises.

Spreeha is a non-profit organization that inspires change by empowering people. With the use of creative solutions, Spreeha enables individuals and communities to rise above social barriers. Spreeha envisions a world where people and communities are empowered to achieve their full potential.

The Hunger Project is a global organization where community-led development is grounded in the principles of grassroots action, gender equality, and community mobilization. In Bangladesh, we promote the expansion of civil society and participatory democracy through extensive volunteer networks and localize action on the SDGs. In addition to these two foundational efforts, local, community-led climate action is a necessary part of the sustainable end of hunger in Bangladesh. The Hunger Project’s Climate Change Resilient Villages (CCRV) program will identify community-level vulnerabilities and inform local adaptations to build resilience and adaptive capacity from the Union up to the District level.

The University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) is one of Bangladesh’s leading research and teaching institutions. We strive for excellence through the creation, preservation, transfer, and application of knowledge. For almost two decades now, we have been educating and working with outstanding people to deliver knowledge leadership for a better world. Established on the principles of liberal arts, ULAB, through its ten research centers, including the Center for Enterprise and Society and the Center for Sustainable Development, has been involved in the research and implementation of development projects in partnership with international universities and local and international NGOs and bilateral donors.

Water & Life Bangladesh (W&L) is a non-governmental organization with a vision of “cities where people in deprived urban slums of Bangladesh can enjoy decent living conditions.” W&L aims to sustainably improve the living conditions in these resource-poor neighborhoods through access to running drinking water at the household level. Since 2012, W&L has been operating in the slums of Dhaka and Chattogram to address the basic humanitarian needs by ensuring water access and other essential activities (fire protection, hygiene, menstrual hygiene, and community empowerment) to more than 10,100 people.

Youth Policy Forum (YPF) is a policy dialogue, research, and advocacy platform for young Bangladeshi policy enthusiasts from all over the world. By creating a pool of young intellectual minds, YPF intends to establish a support system to help governmental and non-government organizations and global policymakers adopt more inclusive policies. Climate adaptation and resilience are a part of the Bangladeshi gene. But our adaptation efforts are happening in silos. YPF wants to bridge that gap to evenly increase the resilience of the nation through this AI4Resilience challenge.

YY Ventures Limited is an incubation and investment Social Business. It supports early-stage social entrepreneurs with world-class training, tailor-made consultation, business support services, co-working space, and access to a network of investors, enabling them to navigate their way towards launching a minimum viable product and raising funds.