Turn.io, in collaboration with OpenAI and The Agency Fund, has announced the ten organizations selected to participate in the inaugural Chat for Impact GenAI Accelerator in 2024. The organizations will access strategic, technical, operational and financial support to leverage Generative AI and LLM to improve and scale their work in education, health and economic mobility.
Generative AI, and in particular large language models (LLMs), have immense potential to transform engagement and provide supportive services to people through chat, but its use is still in its infancy and held back by technical complexity, lack of technical resources, safety concerns, and equity issues. The GenAI Accelerator provides a supportive and in-depth 8-week programme to help organizations navigate these complexities.
“We believe chat and GenAI will play a pivotal role in the future of how these organizations will deliver impact. These solutions aim to make conversations more efficient, streamlined, and scalable, ultimately improving millions of lives. I am astounded by the caliber of organizations, ideas and the passion behind them. Our participants are problem-solvers who don't shy away from difficult questions and see obstacles as opportunities. As we move forward, I am more convinced than ever that we are on the right path, driven by the most powerful force: dedicated, passionate individuals and teams who believe that a better world is not only possible but achievable." commented Lieze Langford, Head of Accelerators at Turn.io.
The GenAI accelerator will start on 7 May and culminate in a Demo Day, during which the cohort will showcase their AI-supported services to the broader Chat for Impact Community and potential funders or investors.
The Chat for Impact GenAI Accelerator is a collaboration between Turn.io, OpenAI and The Agency Fund to drive transformative change in critical life outcomes and global well-being through secure AI-supported chat solutions.
Today, we are excited to announce the cohort (in alphabetical order):
Acceso - Economic Mobility (El Salvador)
Acceso’s mission is to create fundamental and lasting positive economic change in the lives of rural smallholder farming families by connecting smallholder farmers to markets, providing a pathway out of poverty, and creating lasting impact in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through its agtech platform Extensio, Acceso delivers critical and timely information for farmer decision-making (weather, pest alerts, training), increasing farmers’ productivity and income. Through the accelerator, their aim is to further develop a more accurate, scalable and robust Chat solution using GenAI.
Angaza Elimu - Education (Kenya)
Angaza Elimu is an edtech company focused on empowering African youth through on-demand, skill-based learning to help them thrive in a digital economy. This includes Kalamu, an AI-powered adaptive and interactive eLearning platform that delivers a personalized learning experience to students and amplifies their engagement with teachers. The organization plans to advance their existing WhatsApp channels using GenAI and LLM models to provide teachers with instant pedagogical support, promoting a ‘teaching at the right level’ (TaRL) framework.
Aqui Estoy Chat - Health (Argentina)
'Aquí Estoy’ offers chat-based emotional support to youths struggling with mental health issues. Leveraging social media and WhatsApp, they provide accessible, evidence-based first psychological aid, focusing on peer-to-peer interventions to ensure no one suffers in solitude. Volunteers will participate in simulated conversations powered by GenAI on WhatsApp, receiving immediate feedback on their interactions. This innovative approach not only prepares them more effectively for real-life scenarios but also enhances their ability to respond with greater sensitivity and effectiveness. Additionally, the system provides comprehensive statistical insights into the major obstacles encountered during skill acquisition, effective teaching strategies, and detailed profiles of each volunteer. This data-driven enhancement aims to optimize training outcomes and overall volunteer readiness.
Associação Nova Escola - Education (Brazil)
Nova Escola is a digital platform that provides over 500 thousand public education teachers in Brazil with pedagogical support and professional development. On Nova Escola, teachers find news articles, classroom tools, such as lesson plans, and self-paced courses, all free of charge. With over 500 thousand teachers registered on their platform, Nova Escola’s aim is to provide educators with an innovative LLM-powered chat solution on WhatsApp to help them during lesson planning with GenAI.
Educate Girls - Education (India)
Educate Girls is a non-profit that focuses on mobilizing communities for girls' education in India's rural and educationally backward areas. Working in partnership with the Government, Educate Girls operates successfully in over 15,000 villages across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. By engaging with a huge base of community volunteers, Educate Girls helps identify, enroll, and retain out-of-school girls and improve foundational literacy and numeracy skills for all children (both girls and boys). Simultaneously, Educate Girls offers a second chance program for adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-29) that builds life skills, agency, and educational credentials via open schools (Grades 10 and 12).
They aim to use GenAi to create personalized learning experiences for learners at scale, addressing their specific educational needs and challenges and providing access to resources through WhatsApp.
I-Stem - Economic Mobility (India)
In India, there is a noticeable lack of awareness and insufficient support for the blind and low-vision community. Braille content is scarce, and while technology has a lot of promise, over 96% of digital content is inaccessible and incompatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers. Founded by blind innovators, I-Stem develops technology to enhance access to inaccessible content to help blind and low-vision communities find meaningful employment and contribute to the economy. Incorporating GenAI their aim is to develop a chatbot focused on career discovery and accessible upskilling via WhatsApp and IVR calls, and to scale their service through an integration into the existing Sugamya Bharat app for people with disabilities in India.
Nivi - Health (Nigeria)
The askNivi chatbot enables health promoters, healthcare providers, payers & pharmaceutical manufacturers to reach, understand & serve patient populations at scale, enabling individuals to achieve their health aspirations. They use data and behavioral science to create a conversational marketplace for healthcare as well as crucial market-shaping insights. The organization aims to upgrade Nivi’s Maternal Health Journey that supports women throughout pregnancy and the first months of parenting, using generative AI in order to serve the most relevant content with optimal timing for each individual based on their self-expressed questions and concerns.
Pinky Promise - Health (India)
Pinky Promise is a first of its kind Instant AI clinic for women’s sexual and reproductive health. The most downloaded women’s health app in India, for all sexual and reproductive health issues, women are able to immediately and privately, chat with a highly qualified gynecologist and get immediate diagnosis and care at a fraction of the price. Today, Indian women with any symptom or question can instantly connect with a Gynecologist on Pinky Promise, get a prescription all within minutes (in just over a dollar) thanks to Pinky Promise’s custom AI. In just 8 months since the launch of their platform, Pinky Promise has scaled to 70k+ downloads on google play, to become the most downloaded women's health app in India, with 10k+ women treated and 84% outcome improvement. Pinky Promise’s ML is trained on more than 250 global medical protocols to suggest diagnosis and treatments for 97% of all reproductive health issues. The organization aims to use GenAI to make sexual and reproductive healthcare instantly available to every woman in India, by allowing them to message us, understand their issue, and connect with our Gynecologists instantly, in a completely frictionless and empathetic manner.
Quipu - Financial Inclusion (Colombia)
Quipu provides informal microbusinesses with working capital loans and supply chain financing using proprietary AI credit scores based on alternative data for users who are 90% rejected by traditional credit bureaus and financial institutions in Colombia. More than 60% of their clients are women entrepreneurs living in low-income neighborhoods across Colombia. The organization aims to leverage GenAI to develop an "Informal CFO" on WhatsApp. This virtual assistant will provide personalized financial guidance to empower microbusiness owners to make informed decisions to strengthen their enterprises, driving sustainable growth and resilience within the informal economy.
Yoco & Harvard Business School researchers - Economic Mobility (South Africa)
Micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries face significant challenges, including access to complementary resources and digital tools, limiting their ability to effectively access and utilize information and advice. Yoco and Harvard researchers plan to use fully personalized AI to empower thousands of small business entrepreneurs in Africa, increase economic mobility, and reduce gender inequality. The partnership will address constraints faced by micro-entrepreneurs, including limited resources to implement AI assistance and access to digital finance tools.
The selection process proved to be highly competitive, with organizations chosen based on multiple essential criteria. These included possessing an established digital service, a demonstrated ability to scale social impact solutions, and a well-articulated Business Case or Theory of Change that highlighted how AI chat solutions could drive positive outcomes. The selected organizations are active in the sectors of Education, Health, or Economic Mobility, demonstrate a readiness to utilize WhatsApp for their chat services and have the organizational capacity to develop and manage these services. They should also maintain a sustainable business strategy to ensure continued impact beyond the accelerator program.
The GenAI accelerator will culminate in a Demo Day where the cohort will showcase their AI-supported services to the broader Chat for Impact Community, OpenAI, and potential investors.
