Twenty social change organisations from across the world, representing five major impact sectors, have been selected to join the Chat for Impact Accelerator 2022 hosted by Turn.io in partnership with WhatsApp.
This year’s Accelerator cohort comprises organisations working in Health, Education, Civic Engagement, Financial Inclusion and Humanitarian response. The organisations serve communities in 16 different countries - Argentina, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa.
The virtual Chat for Impact Accelerator programme provides mentorship and support to social impact organisations wanting to build and scale a WhatsApp chat service to improve their impact and reach. Each organisation will also be awarded US$ 25,000 to help materialise this.
The 20 winners were shortlisted from 920 organisations that participated in the Chat for Impact Bootcamp Series held between March and September this year, and were required to submit an application that included a description of the problem they want to solve, the scale of impact they would like to achieve, and their intended audience.
The final 2022 Chat for Impact Accelerator cohort comprises:
Cystercare - an organisation offering a collaborative care approach, tailored for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) recovery.
Everwell Health - a social enterprise that invents, designs, builds and deploys user-centric technology for healthcare programmes across the world.
MedPiper - a health-tech startup that verifies and connects doctors and healthcare professionals (HCPs) with hospitals and healthcare organisations.
Saajha - an organisation catalysing India’s public education reforms through parent and community leadership. It is building an ecosystem for parents to feel connected and supported in their efforts to impact the lives of children, and drive transformative change - (Support without financial contribution)
Chalo Network - Chalo Network provides suitable financial, welfare, documentation, identity, and healthcare services to low-income migrant households in India through a strategic last mile agent network.
EiE Project - Enough is Enough (EiE) Nigeria (aka The EiE Project) promotes good governance and public accountability in Nigeria through active citizenship.
Prestasi Junior - Prestasi Junior Indonesia is part of Junior Achievement Worldwide, one of the world's largest youth-serving NGOs, that prepares young people for employment.
Guidepost - Guidepost was established in 2012 to help improve the quality of life of people living with diabetes, a condition that affects more than 400 million people globally.
Zuri Health - Zuri Health provides affordable and accessible healthcare solutions for people living in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda and Ghana.
Hera Digital Health - HERA’s mission is to provide a mobile health platform that connects refugee populations with existing healthcare worldwide.
CARE Nigeria - CARE works around the globe to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice.
Darsel - Darsel is an AI-powered chatbot that helps K12 students learn maths in environments with limited devices and internet access.
Committee to Protect Journalists - The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation that promotes press freedom worldwide.
VoteRiders - VoteRiders’ mission is to ensure that no eligible voter is prevented from casting a ballot that counts due to a lack of acceptable ID or because of voter confusion.
Taskeen Health - a non-profit organisation working on increasing mental health awareness, providing free mental health support, and advocating for mental health policy change in Pakistan.
Violetta - Violetta is a chatbot service that acts as a “digital confidant" for women facing gender violence, guiding them, answering their questions and connecting them with a professional who can support them.
NewGlobe - NewGlobe supports national and state governments by creating powerful technology-enabled education systems. An education expert and leader in learning, NewGlobe has unequalled experience in dramatically transforming educational outcomes at speed and at scale.
Proxalys - ProXalys is a Senegalese startup specialising in B2B commerce, with informal sector retailers as its main target.
Junior Achievement Americas - As part of one of the world’s largest youth-serving NGOs, JA Americas activates youth for the future of jobs. Through the delivery of cutting-edge, experiential learning in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship, it creates pathways for employability and job creation.
Friend - Support for the mental health of people suffering during the war in Ukraine.
Chat for Impact was devised to support, accelerate and scale the work that social change enterprises are doing to provide vulnerable, disempowered, and minority communities with easy and secure access to vital information and support via WhatsApp. Over the past few years, the use of chat services on WhatsApp to provide access to life-changing information and resources has grown considerably, and the Accelerator is aimed at significantly building that community in 2022.
"The Chat for Impact Accelerator is an awesome opportunity to support organisations that are looking to increase the scale and reach of their WhatsApp service. We're excited to build off last year's success and see more solutions that are developed by this year’s cohort and the impact and reach they are able to achieve." - Ben Supple, Head of Public Sector & Nonprofit Partnerships at Meta.
We are inspired by the organisations that have made it into this year’s Chat for Impact Accelerator, which has become the highlight of our year. Reviewing the hundreds of use cases, from achieving universal health care to delivering adaptive personalised education, we were struck by the huge ambition and range of this year's solutions. It is clear that secure chat is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of effective social impact programmes that scale.
In the weeks ahead, we will be working with each one of these organisations to help them launch their transformational service.” says Gustav Praekelt, Founder of Praekelt.org and co-founder at Turn.io.
The Accelerator culminates in the 2022 Chat for Impact Summit, where all 20 organisations will demo their live chat service during an inspiring hybrid event that will take place in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as online.
*Photo credit: Violetta, Care International
