Turn.io is excited to announce the opening of applications for the Chat for Women's Livelihoods (CWL) Accelerator, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This program is specifically designed for organizations dedicated to Women's Economic Development Initiatives, encompassing the enhancement of women's economic skills, market access, income-generating opportunities, and the desire to leverage a WhatsApp chat service for scaling their impact.
Organizations working in Kenya, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Uganda, Senegal and Nigeria focused on Women’s Economic Empowerment are invited to apply.
Building on the success of the Chat for Impact Health Accelerator in 2023, the CWL Accelerator will help participating organizations leverage innovative chat technology, data analytics, community learning, AI and large language models (LLMs) to design and develop an impactful chat service on WhatsApp that will scale and enhance learning, translating into direct livelihood income increases to women.
Participating organizations will benefit from comprehensive support, including guidance, mentorship, and practical assistance in the development of their chat services. Additionally, they will join a global community of organizations already achieving success through chat engagement, gaining access to valuable knowledge and insights. They will also be granted a Turn.io platform license for one year, complete access to Turn.io chat platform features, a subsidized WhatsApp Business Account (WABA), and continuous support for a duration of 18 months.
The primary emphasis of the CWL Accelerator lies in designing, building and deploying a meaningful WhatsApp-based Chat service. To qualify, applicants should showcase a well-defined business rationale or theory of change illustrating the utility of a chat-based service in engaging their communities and amplifying their impact. They should also possess the capacity to commit to the development timeline and process, along with the necessary resources to ensure the sustainability of the chat service beyond the accelerator period. Additionally, organizations are mandated to establish a robust measurement and analysis system, facilitating the collection of baseline and endpoint data to gauge the economic impact on women users of the service in their livelihood outcomes including income, linkage to markets, business growth and opportunities.
"Our mission through the Accelerator is to harness the potential of chat to advance the economic transformation of women,” said Pippa Yeats, Co-Founder of Turn.io. “We are excited to launch a program that will provide personalized guidance, mentorship, hands-on support, Turn.io’s conversational technology and the power of WhatsApp to empower change and accelerate the growth and impact of organizations in this sector. We invite social enterprises working to advance economic opportunities for women to apply.”
Further information about the Chat for Women’s Livelihoods Accelerator and the application form can be found HERE. Organizations with direct enquiries or questions relating to the Accelerator can contact lieze@turn.io. Applications close on Wednesday, January 31st 2023.
