Indonesia
Between 11-13 May 2020, SDI is organising an online collaborative hackathon aimed at developing open source hardware solutions and culture hacks for Indonesia. Together with HONF, Ke:kini and CAST we aim to empower local grassroots innovators, makers, designers and social entrepreneurs to support the fight against Covid-19. The outcomes are published in an open access booklet, and include:
- An affordable UV-C light box to disinfect doctors’ clothes in hospitals.
- Wearable technology alerting when passersby’s come too close in public spaces.
- Microbit Alarm System, a community alarm system to alert neighbours if someone falls ill. The target audience is parents of people working in the fields.
- Covfree: a kids’ hat that buzzes when its wearer is about to touch their face to help them avoid catching Covid-19.
- Pameran Virtual: a virtual exhibition app to help art remain available to everyone.
- A project in which 3 teams united to develop a platform to share solutions for local production and circular economy and ecology.
Hungary
Cloudess
The Cloudess community has been launched to inspire undergraduate and also freshly graduated women to build a successful career in the technology and business sectors. Our community seeks to overcome local and global problems, such as labor shortages in these sectors, especially where women professionals are needed.
Our mission is to promote a paradigm shift of in mindsets and help to break the glass ceiling. We are working on finding the underlying causes of these issues, such as family backgrounds and the characteristics of generation Y. Generation Y women prefer flexible working schedules and want to find the best blend of an enjoyable life and a fulfilling working environment. However, lower salaries may cause lower self-esteem, and create concerns over the establishment of a family in the near future. As a solution, our community is organizing several meetups, workshops and trainings to help improving their soft-skills, and also their hard-skills, providing them opportunities in fields that are in demand, well paid, rewarding, and often offer flexible working environments and schedules.
Our theory of change is to form a brand new habit to unlock their potential. We are planning to develop an online platform, where our beneficiaries can access a base of knowledge and apply for free events. Furthermore, an enterprise membership system will be provided to our potential clients where they can subscribe. Well defined donation levels will be created in return for our several services, such as employer branding and other value added services.
By joining the global goal we aim to help reduce gender inequality.
Envienta
ENVIENTA is a next generation sharing economy model, a DIY maker movement, a community-based solution package and ultimately a sustainable, cost effective and decentralized socioeconomic framework for the 21st century. ENVIENTA is also a P2P open source platform cooperative, which provides shared know-how, blueprints, products and resources for members. We’re operating as a community controlled initiative with full transparency and as a registered non-profit organization in Spain and Hungary.
“Ever more grassroots initiatives and nonprofit organizations are addressing today’s biggest social problems and environmental issues, but Envienta may have finally connected the dots through their holistic approach in open source development. The founders have recognized the increasing power of collaborating P2P communities and working with them to build a whole new socio-economic model. This project could raise humanity’s standard of living by focusing on the combination of food supply, accomodation and digitalized local production.”
LifeBot
LifeBot is a remote-controlled rescue robot that helps rescue teams to safely find survivors and apply on-site medical treatments.
It is known that rescue team members (e.g. firemen, doctors) are often wounded during their missions. Also, because they are risky and exhausting, search and rescue procedures are often prematurely ended, leaving potential survivors to die. By using LifeBot, more potential survivors can be rescued in time, while reducing risks for rescue teams. The robot has three possible use cases: inspecting dangerous industrial sites, accessing infected areas and applying on-site medical treatments, and search and rescue operations.
Lifebot targets governmental and non-governmental organisations as partners and/or customers. Since some tasks require robots with specific on-board tools or functions, cooperation during the development process with future users can be highly beneficial.
Our team consists of university students passionate about Robotics, Medicine and Industrial Law. Because of the project’s complexity, we sustain continuous connections with senior professionals. As far as prototyping and testing is concerned, our team looks to build on the help of companies specialised in relevant areas.
By selling LifeBot to organisations, our main aim is to make communities prepared for all the possible disasters in their area. We not only want to create a powerful rescue tool, but also deliver the sense of security for communities.
MET3R
The MET3R app is smart energy service that gives personalised advice on how to lower your home’s energy use. With MET3R you save money, reduce your CO2 footprint and get new comfort and security features for your home.
People unknowingly waste energy at home, which leads to unnecessary costs and emissions. Since consumers don’t get real-time feedback on their energy consumption, it is difficult to identify and change habits that lead to savings. MET3R interprets the household’s electricity consumption, gives personalised saving tips, real-time feedback, historical overview, predictions and lets the user set limits or compare her consumption with others. Beyond these core functions MET3R can also send security alerts and provide comfort services to streamline relations with the user’s utility provider.
MET3R works as a standalone app or with a small device that needs to be installed on a ‘dumb’ electricity meter. With the MET3R device consumption data is available as a real-time stream and can provide granule information to the level of individual appliances.
MET3R’s vision is to reduce consumers’ energy bills and consumption, make energy systems more efficient and be part of the sustainable future.
Germany
LensShift
Represented in the SDI Incubation program by Aparna Shrivastava, LensShift is a resource platform aimed at addressing misguided development and social impact work. In the age of information overload, efforts to shine a spotlight on shortcomings of the sector are spread between too many platforms leaving no cohesive narrative on what not to do and the missed opportunities of what can be done better. LensShift is changing this. We’re creating a space that facilitates learning, critical reflection and discourse on social change by providing in-depth historical, political and cultural contexts on a wide spectrum of related subjects.We offer a comprehensive library of existing resources (articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.), structured resource streams that unpack critical topics fundamental to social impact endeavors in global contexts and practical guides that can be tangibly applied in daily work and conversations. As we grow, we will also develop offerings for contextualized training opportunities for groups and organizations that seek to responsibly work in the social impact and development sphere.
Considering the endless difficulties bombarding the world’s poor, misguided development work makes life more challenging for those already in the most difficult circumstances. We equip change-makers and transform perspectives on how to responsibly do good in the social impact space from the start. This will minimize lessons learned at the expense of communities.
Rather than replicating the compelling work of others, we bring together their wisdom so that the status quo can no longer persist. We transform perspectives on how to do good.
LensShift: the resource hub for responsible social impact.
Fintech for the UnBanked
This project was pitched by WeiHsi Hu and is a mobile savings account that nudges you into managing money better. Our vision is that the unbanked will have a better financial future. Using digital solutions, we will create a savings account with features that enable people to directly and proactively manage their money and plan a better financial future. Inspired by the people we worked with, this initiative is specifically for those who are low income, migrants, and homeless. Our team has a proven track record working in the charity sector with expertise in strategic development, social impact, and partnership building. With the support of Social-Digital Innovation, we hope to bring our vision into reality.
Free the Data
The Free the Data project by Thomas O’Neill is an initiative to produce/develop a suite of free and open-source software to enable users to cross-channel their data into user-managed, distributed and blockchain-secured database(s).
The vision here is to pave the way to a world where we are truly in charge of our own data. As it stands, the “Big Data” space, particularly when it comes to social data, is super monopolized by the GAFA’s (Google’s, Amazon’s, Facebook’s and Apple’s of the world). The development of software leveraging this data (think of the applications in AI and augmented reality) necessitates a profit drive, which is toxic to society (see “targeted advertising”, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and so on).
The technology isn’t going to get any less creepy (see the IoT space). It’s simply a question of whether we want the technology to be profit-driven or human-driven.
Menstrual Health Hub
The Menstrual Health Hub (MH Hub) is a global and interdisciplinary Community of Practice (CoP) for menstrual health actors and organizations, represented in the incubation program by Danielle Kaiser and Mariana De La Roche. The MH Hub seeks to overcome geographical and thematic barriers to help professionalize a fragmented field, and strengthen collective impact at the local, national, regional and global level.
Our vision is a world where menstrual health is a priority so that women, girls, and those who menstruate can thrive. Inclusive and impartial, our mission is to improve communication, connection and collaboration through an engaging and accessible online platform that centralizes menstrual health research, education, policy and innovations.
Our philosophy is that solutions to menstrual health challenges are as unique as the people seeking them. We recognize the diversity of approaches to improving menstrual health. We acknowledge the incredible contributions being made in this field by a diverse body of actors and aim to amplify the voices of this robust and rapidly growing community.
Social-Digital Innovation 