Turn.io, in collaboration with OpenAI and The Agency Fund, has launched the inaugural Chat for Impact GenAI Accelerator. The Accelerator will support 10 organisations in safely leveraging the power of AI-supported chat solutions to help address some of the world’s major challenges and scale their impact in education, health, or economic mobility.
Social Impact organisations are developing promising solutions for humanity's biggest challenges - yet they need more technical, financial and operational resources to scale their ideas. Emerging technologies such as smartphones, secure messaging, and Generative AI have immense potential to help overcome some of these constraints. Secure & private messaging on smartphones, has enabled the global deployment of transformative services in development. Generative AI, and in particular large language models (LLM) have a similar potential to transform development, 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 aims to support impact organisations with transformative ideas and who have the ability to scale to billions of people, to overcome these challenges and leverage Generative AI and LLM to improve critical life outcomes and well-being globally.
Participants will embark on an 8-week programme to explore what’s possible using Generative AI approaches and accelerate the design, testing, launch, and safe scaling of secure AI-supported chat solutions.
Thematic modules will cover designing impactful AI-supported chat services with LLMs, AI safety and equity, impact measurement and evaluation, scaling solutions and technical considerations.
Organisations selected for the program will access:
Technical, strategic and governance support from expert advisors from Turn.io and OpenAI
Mentorship & guidance as they build their AI-enabled chat service
Peer learning opportunities from the broader Chat for Impact Accelerator Alumni
Post-program support to sustain and grow momentum
Grant funding to the value of $ 35,000 to help continue to develop an existing chat service, with a further $ 50,000 each for the top three best-performing organisations.
Access to a share of $ 500 000 in OpenAI API credits
Turn.io software license for six months valued at $3,000
The GenAI accelerator will culminate in a Demo Day where the 10 participants will showcase their AI-supported chat services to the broader Chat for Impact Community, OpenAI, and potential investors.
Ideal applicants are social impact organizations working in health, education and economic mobility with a well-defined theory of change or business case and should be committed to leveraging AI to support a secure, private, personalised chat service. Candidates should demonstrate a strong commitment to building real-world chat applications and possess the organisational capacity to participate in the accelerator programme and sustain the chat service long-term. Applicants for the programme should have an existing digital service (not necessarily AI-powered).
Many great examples of AI-supported chat solutions already exist within the Chat for Impact Community. Rising Academies utilize 'Rori,' a chat-based virtual math tutor, to address the math education crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. Using Generative AI, ‘Rori’ dynamically processes students' answers, provides accurate feedback, identifies students' intents and preferences, and engages in complex and open-ended conversations, offering a personalised and innovative approach to math education.
In healthcare, Guidepost utilises AI-supported chat within their diabetes coaching platform to facilitate automated messaging that complements real human interaction with patients. Since mid-2020, additional AI tools were introduced to enhance follow-up and issue escalation planning, reinforcing Guidepost's comprehensive approach to diabetes management.
The accelerator is a collaboration between Turn.io, OpenAI and The Agency Fund to drive transformative change in critical life outcomes and global wellbeing through secure AI-supported chat solutions.
"We’re excited to announce the Chat for Impact: GenAI Accelerator at a time of immense potential for innovative AI-supported chat solutions that can make meaningful conversations more efficient, streamlined and scalable to improve millions of lives. We’ve developed a comprehensive, hands-on accelerator programme to enable impact organisations to develop engaging, more personalised services that can safely scale." - Gustav Praekelt, Co-Founder at Turn.io
“This innovative effort to build AI-powered chat tools that improve access to important, life-saving information can benefit millions of people,” said Anna Makanju, OpenAI’s vice president of global affairs. “From public health assistants that answer questions about vaccine access to hotlines that answer questions about passports and other vital public services, experts around the world will be able to use our tools in exciting new ways — and the possibilities are truly endless.”
Interested organisations can access additional information or apply for the Chat for Impact GenAI Accelerator HERE
*Applications are open to organisations with existing digital services in production, not necessarily AI-powered.
Applications close on 31 March, 2024
