Past Winners

AdmitHub

Every spring, 2.5 million students are admitted to college in the U.S. By September, 14% who intend to enroll will fail to matriculate. Of the students who enroll, 48% fail to earn a degree within six years. Students who dropout disproportionately come from underserved communities, which frequently lack the supportive resources to help students navigate challenging financial, academic, and social situations. The societal impact of this phenomenon is staggering, costing the U.S. an estimated $4.5 billion in lost earnings and taxes annually. AdmitHub has designed an innovative solution to these issues – an AI virtual assistant. The primary benefits are: 1) students receive personalized support 24/7, 2) colleges enjoy greater insight into individual and collective student mindsets and more time to engage deeply with students who most need support, and 3) more data is available for universities to provide greater individual support.

Logistimo

Economic inclusion of rural frontier communities, of 3Billion people, is handicapped by inefficiencies of last-mile logistics. Constrained by availability, reliability and affordability of transport, villages lack access to essential goods, rendering them underserved and disconnected from mainstream value chains. Local vehicle operators suffer information asymmetry, favoritism of entrenched relationships, and inability to appropriately aggregate demand. This status quo perpetuates limited opportunities and uncertain working hours for local transporters, all while failing to capture carbon-footprint reduction opportunities through smarter capacity utilization and scheduling. Our auction-based platform – using demand aggregation, load/route/schedule optimization, and fulfilment tracking – better connects demand to local capacity, alleviating most collection & distribution obstacles. Our vehicle-agnostic approach supports milk runs and line-hauls, seamlessly integrating trucks, bikes, boats and UAVs alike. During 18 months, the platform has performed 14k deliveries for 1000 customers, and >80 livelihoods have been created alongside a 300% income increase for many transporters.

LaunchCode

The growing tech economy is creating a huge number of well-paying, upwardly mobile jobs – far more than colleges, universities, and for-profit bootcamps can fill – which offer immense financial and professional rewards for those equipped to participate. Moreover, coders increasingly have the power to make decisions that shape society’s development. However, most Americans lack access to the training that would allow them to enter tech careers, particularly those with the fewest resources and the most to gain from developing valuable new skills. LaunchCode is solving this disconnect by providing free, accelerated job training using a low-cost, scalable model to quickly replicate in-person coding classes across the country. Additionally, we place our graduates into paid apprenticeships with hundreds of companies to help them transition into full-time employment in tech despite lacking traditional credentials. We partner with employers to determine their needs and establish LaunchCode as a trusted source of talent.

EFL

Three billion people lack the credit history lenders require to make a loan. This creates a massive missed opportunity for lenders and widespread financial exclusion. With EFL’s digital credit assessment, lenders can quickly select the best people to say yes to, where other lenders are forced to say no. EFL has 10 years of experience applying psychometrics and behavioral science to loan repayment. That means we know how personality drives credit risk, across cultures and segments. And we apply this knowledge to effectively score anyone, anywhere, at any time. Over 35 lenders across 15 countries trust EFL to safely grow their lending portfolios. With more than $1.5 billion lent across hundreds of thousands of loans, EFL will empower lenders to grow without the risk.

99Degrees Custom

99Degrees Custom is a future apparel manufacturing factory. As off-shored mass production becomes obsolete, regional speed factories are the future, enabling brands to respond to demand, hold less inventory, and innovate ahead of their competition. We apply this model to the production of activewear and wearable technology apparel for leading and emerging brands and over fastest turn production, on-demand customization, and agility to respond to shifts in demand. We are redefining the apparel manufacturing industry while creating jobs that catalyze opportunity and advancement. In apparel manufacturing, automation and job creation are not mutually exclusive. The bridge we’re building between an antiquated industry and an advanced manufacturing industry offers a unique opportunity to employ a manually skilled workforce, pay living wages, and invest in transitioning that workforce into a future innovation economy workforce.

Iora Health

Iora Health has built a new model of care delivery from the ground up, built on relationships and not transactions, and centered around the concept of health coaches, people from the community who are chosen for empathy and work closely with doctors to help patients execute on their care plans.

We work with progressive employers and health plans to serve their populations, and build new primary care practices based on our model. We get paid not fee for service (per sick visit) but for actually keeping people healthy. We have 3 health coaches per doctor, and they are key to our incredible outcomes which include much better health, and keeping our patients out of unnecessary specialist visits, ER trips, and hospital admissions, resulting in 15-20% lower total healthcare costs. We also built our own IT system to help our coaches do their job.

Laboratoria

Laboratoria takes advantage of a real market demand – the need for developers across the tech sector – and solves it by addressing one of the most pressing social problems in Latin America: the lack of quality education and job opportunities for low-income youth. We select and recruit young women with promising talent and take them through an immersive 5-month training program. Our comprehensive education approach includes not only technical skills but also a personal and professional development program that teaches soft skills essential to the job market. Upon graduation, we connect our coders with tech companies in need of their talent. Our students pay gradually and only once they are employed, which makes our program affordable to a population excluded from quality programs. Our goal is to reach 10,000 young women by 2020, giving them the tools they need to change the face of the Latin American tech sector.

Year Up

Year Up, a national nonprofit organization operating in sixteen markets, endeavors to close the Opportunity Divide, the vast gap that exists between Opportunity Youth, who lack access to opportunity, and Fortune 1000 companies, who lack access to a pipeline of diverse, skilled talent. Year Up has over fifteen years of experience equipping low-income young adults with skills and experience that will allow them to compete for, and obtain, professional jobs with career pathways. 85% of our graduates are employed and/or enrolled in school full-time within four months of program completion, and employed graduates earn an average starting wage of upwards of $18/hour. Through our direct service program, we are seeking to prove, along with leading employers on a national scale, that Opportunity Youth are a viable talent source for entry-level and middle-skilled jobs.

Bottom Line

Bottom Line’s goal is for students to graduate from college with minimal debt and prepared to enter the workforce. To achieve this, our unique Success program sends trained counselors to college campuses across Massachusetts to meet with students in-person multiple times throughout the year, supplemented with contact via Skype, Facebook and text message. This program is modeled on the philosophy of intrusive advising: a method of pro-active service to identify crisis points and connect students with the support that they need. Counselors use a codified curriculum to ensure students can overcome any obstacles that might get in the way of earning that degree. Bottom Line has identified the four areas most likely to cause college drop-out: Degree, Employability, Aid, and Life, or DEAL. Through this high-touch, high-impact model, students have the support and network they need to overcome obstacles, complete their degree, and be matched to a career relevant position.

Coding Dojo

Coding Dojo’s mission is to transform lives through programming literacy. To accomplish this, we developed a proven solution that equips low- and middle-earning individuals with the hard-skills needed to get a high-paying job in an industry growing at two times the national average. The majority of Coding Dojo applicants make less than $50,000 per year, and upon graduation the average starting salary is $72,486. Through years of refinement, we are the only coding bootcamp in the world that teaches three full technology stacks in 14 weeks. This is an important differentiator since it significantly opens up the type of roles (back-end, front-end, full-stack, mobile development) that our alumni can pursue after successful completion of the program. By learning multiple stacks they also “learn how to learn” and can easily pick up new technologies that don’t even exist today — truly arming them for opportunities of the future.

Coworker.org

In an economy dominated by 100,000+ employee firms, centralized unions could effectively serve as advocates for workers’ economic interests, and as powerful partners in ensuring regulation enforcement. An economy with start-ups employing 500 full-time employees and 150,000 W9 contractors or coffee chains with 20,000 storefronts using dynamic scheduling software requires complements to this model, including workplace networks and support for these networks in ensuring enforcement of regulations.

Coworker.org has created a platform through which workers can understand broader dynamics, form networks within their companies, take leadership, and improve their working conditions. With the support of Coworker.org staff, networks run campaigns on employee-selected issues and share information and questions about working conditions. Having facilitated major victories in previously unorganized workplaces and industries, we are tailoring the model to ensure that the forces shaping the on-demand economy lead to greater flexibility, increased wages, and improved job satisfaction.

Destácame.cl

Destacame is solving the asymmetry of information between those MSMEs that want a loan and financial institutions. By understanding the timeliness of payments to suppliers, cash flow cycles, e-commerce and social networks interactions we can prove how organized and responsible a MSME is.

With each MSME consent Destacame gathers historical information and, using our proprietary algorithm, creates a credit score that MSMEs can share with financial institutions to prove their credit worthiness. This type of information has proven predictive for people and also is for MSMEs.

Our business model benefits all stakeholders. MSMEs access to credit increasing productivity and growing their businesses, large suppliers grow along with them as avoid concentration on large clients. At the same time, banks get more information to reduce the risk of new clients while the reduction on the cost of credit origination makes it more attractive to invest in those MSMEs that were invisible.

digitalundivided

digitalundivided’s (DID) mission is to foster economic growth by finding, supporting, and growing women of color entrepreneurs. A hybrid non profit/for profit organization, DID provides Black and Latina women entrepreneurs with the network, coaching, and funding to build and scale their companies through our BIG Accelerator. Using a Lean Startup Methodology tailored for communities of color, DID excels at 1) finding Black and Latina women entrepreneurs with high growth companies and game changing ideas, 2) connecting them to an unmatched network of investors, mentors, and influencers, 3) developing their start-up toolkit and leadership skills, and 4) supporting their entrepreneurship journey from the build phase to exit with the goal of helping create companies that have a strong positive impact on the economic health of their local communities.

doctHERs

doctHERs™ is a digital health platform that connects female doctors to underserved patients in real-time while leveraging online technology. Female doctors can remotely access patients via high-definition (HD), nurse-assisted video-consultation using a cloud-based telemedicine system that includes Electronic Medical Records (EMR), online medical online referral system and application of peripheral diagnostic tools such as blood pressure sensors, pulse oximeter, e-thermometer, e-ophthalmoscope, etc. Point-of-care located nurses, Community Health Workers (CHWs) and Community Midwives (CMWs) are trained to assist these home-based doctors in the physical assessment of patients.

doctHERs™ has treated over 15,000 patients in its first year and ultimately seeks to impact over 50 million lives across 5 continents by 2030.

Duolingo

Duolingo uses modern technology to teach languages in a way that is free, fun, and effective. Its mission: free language education for the world. Duolingo has three unique characteristics:

• It’s 100% free. All educational content is available for free for all.
• It feels like a game. Duolingo uses game elements so users have fun and stay motivated to learn. Learners earn experience points, work to unlock new levels, and more. Lessons are interactive (you must answer correctly to proceed) and are broken down into bite-sized exercises that can be learned on the go.
• Its methodology is rigorously science-based. Duolingo uses machine learning algorithms to understand how users are learning and generate personalized lessons accordingly — these algorithms use data points from users completing more than 7 billion exercises per month.

eKutir Global PBC

eKutir’s innovation is in creating a holistic yet highly personalized approach with a high-touch model to access low-income markets. A fragmented and exploitative supply chain is converted in to a responsible and ethical value chain, to foster exchange of products and services with the low-income markets. eKutir has designed and deployed ICT platform that can enable the development of an ecosystem that can unleash multi-pronged, integrated interventions to address complex problems such as rural poverty in developing countries. Such convergence requires concerted efforts from multiple actors (e.g., farmers, micro-entrepreneurs, agricultural firms, sanitation firms, and government), each leveraging their core competencies but doing so in collaboration with others for self-sustaining, maximum impact. Our core philosophy is defined on designing an integrated, collaborative ecosystem for helping people in low-income markets lead secure and dignified lives. The ecosystem thrives on the principle of using business and market-led models to generate socio-economic transformation.

General Assembly

We face a global youth unemployment crisis, yet employers struggle to identify and hire skilled talent. General Assembly develops solutions that serve the needs of both of these populations and bridges the gap between them to conquer these intertwined challenges. Through partnerships with nonprofits and government agencies who specialize in serving disconnected youth, General Assembly combines best practice youth development principles with proven accelerated training to create powerful pathways for underserved youth into high-wage, in-demand jobs in technology, business, data, and design. General Assembly’s Credentialing Network has developed free skills-based assessments that evaluate potential employees’ ability to solve business problems with technology using 21st century skills so that they no longer have to rely on traditional hiring methods that risk excluding hidden talent. Assessments designed by and for employers make the hiring process more transparent and evaluate talent at different career stages. Together these interventions are closing the digital divide.

Ignitia

Ignitia provides highly accurate forecasts for small scale farmers via SMS. We developed a weather model specifically calibrated for the tropics, resulting in forecasts that are twice as accurate as global models (~84%). We get these forecasts to farmers by partnering with telcos to send GPS-specific daily forecasts, as well as monthly and seasonal predictions. The message is sent in a simple text-lite format, and can be received on any mobile phone (no smartphone required). Farmers don’t have to pay a large sum upfront, instead they subscribe via their telco and pay in micro-installments from their existing mobile credit. It costs just $0.03/message, adding up to just 1%-2% of a farmer’s total costs for a ROI. Last year in Ghana, ~80,000 farmers subscribed and we had less than 3% churn over the season. Since our system is also 97% automated, it’s easily scalable across countries.

Jana

For smartphone users living in emerging market countries like India and Indonesia, their devices are their gateways to the Internet. But the relative high cost of the mobile data needed to access the Internet limits these users’ connection. We believe that the key way of solving the connectivity problem in emerging markets is to lower the cost per megabyte of data. Through Jana’s mCent app, users discover and try a world of new apps without incurring any data charges. Free Internet connectivity is made possible through partnerships with 311 mobile operators. We firmly believe fair and open access to the Internet is a basic human right—it’s a mission that we are very passionate about achieving. We hope that in the next four to five years, we can reach the next billion people to help them get online, break down the financial barrier to connection, and change the world.

LeadGenius

Rethink Robotics

Rethink’s smart, collaborative robots are able to automate the 90 percent of tasks that until now, have been beyond the reach of traditional automation. Baxter and Sawyer, powered by the Intera software platform, adapt to real-world variability, can change applications quickly and perform tasks like people do. The result: manufacturers of all shapes, sizes and industries get the fast-to-deploy, easy-to-use and versatile automation solution they need to increase flexibility, lower cost and accelerate innovation.

Unlike other collaborative robots, Rethink’s robots are built with a software-first approach that enables a smarter more flexible robot.

The end product are affordable, flexible robots that can perform the tasks manufacturers need and can shift between tasks in minutes, not hours.

Rural Sourcing Inc.

RSI intends to create 3,000 new technology jobs in the US by establishing Development Centers in Tier 2/3 cities across the US using a similar strategy that led much of India out of poverty. Convincing corporate America to outsource their IT work with RSI will provide an economically sustainable stimulus for our communities, an unparalleled opportunity for our colleagues and a cost-effective, elegant solution for our clients.

The goal is to provide IT professional opportunities to geographically-diverse communities by creating domestic outsourcing options. RSI strategically locates our software Development Centers in Tier 2/3 cities in need of economic assistance. These areas are lacking available IT positions, yet are located near centers of higher education, creating a supply of highly-qualified IT professionals. These cities also provide a higher quality-of-life at a lower cost-of-living than their Tier 1 counterparts.

SAP SE

Spearheaded by SAP in 2015 as part of its social investments to drive sustainable growth in Africa, Africa Code Week is on a mission to empower the next generation of African leaders and entrepreneurs with the coding skills they need to thrive in the digital economy and become key actors of Africa’s economic development.

Last year, Africa Code Week enabled 89,000 youth across 17 countries to either write their first lines of code or simply touch a computer for the first time. The largest digital literacy initiative ever organized on the African continent to date, Africa Code Week received a C4F ‘Education of the Future’ award from the World Communications Forum in Davos in March 2016.

Building on the success of this first edition, SAP and partners are now gearing up for Africa Code Week 2016 with plans to introduce coding to 150,000 youth across 30 countries from October 15-23.

Skills for Chicagoland’s Future

“Skills connects unemployed and underemployed job seekers to jobs by working closely with employers to understand their hiring needs and obtaining commitments to hire. Skills’ philosophy is to focus on the demand-side of the workforce by identifying and assessing employers’ needs, rather than replicating the significant supply-side efforts of other organizations that assist job seekers to become job-ready. Additionally, Skills devotes resources to recruiting and screening candidates only if businesses commit to hire under/unemployed job seekers through Skills.

In 2015, Skills launched a three-year strategic growth plan that aims to achieve the following four critical goals:

1. Expand Skills’ placement model in Chicagoland;
2. Innovate new demand-driven placement offerings;
3. Sustain and diversify funding; and
4. Serve as a labor market thought leader on demand-driven solutions leading to systemic change.

Through the strategic plan, Skills aims to place 5,000 under/unemployed job seekers by 2018.

Soko, Inc

Soko is transforming ethical fashion from a niche player in the global fashion industry to a meaningful and competitive sourcing and purchasing option for global brands and individual consumers alike, pioneering Ethical Fast Fashion.

Soko is transforming the status quo of how trade is conducted with emerging markets, to create a more ethical supply chain; matching marginalized artisan production with real-time global demand for Soko’s designs. Soko is a catalyst for global supply chain innovation, leveraging our proprietary Virtual Resource Planning tools (VRP) and mobile enterprise solutions with a distributed network of SME producers for a more ethical and agile production model. Soko is working with over 1300 artisans around Nairobi in a ‘Virtual Factory’ model that is more agile, more distributed and more ethical; where artisans retain an unprecedented 25-35% of revenue and Soko competes on affordability and style in the mainstream fashion market.

StartUp Box

StartUp Box is a social enterprise with an emphasis on enterprise. We’ve created B2B software services relationships with a growing number of clients that allow us to command 100% of the hiring, and divert dollars into underemployed and underprivileged low-status American communities.

Our model uses a Minimum Viable Training approach that leverages outside training organizations, in order to build professional networks, and expose our employees to real world conditions and career paths that were previously unavailable to them.

Since opening our door for business in late 2014, we’ve perfected our ability to assemble local non-traditional teams, and direct their energy in a way that effectively solves client problems.

We don’t ask software developers to do anything different to participate in tech sector diversification. Instead, we take their typical dev process and make it better by effectively packaging diversity they can use right now – in order to build for the future.

uAspire

uAspire believes that technology can be a vital and cost-efficient tool to drive better college affordability decisions for young people and families. uAspire is piloting a Virtual Advising Center to provide college affordability advising via two-way text messaging that if successful, we will seek include as a full service offering of our organization at scale. uAspire is currently developing a business plan for the Virtual Advising Center with Wellspring Advisors to be completed in August 2016. uAspire’s current Virtual Advising Center was launched as part of a randomized controlled trial study in April 2015 with services and research continuing through September 2016 with a cohort of 31,000 students. Fourteen months in, uAspire has shown impressive results with over 73% of students are actively engaging with the texts (with less than 10% opt-out rate) and our Virtual Advising team of seven staff members have sent over 1,000,000 text messages.

Viridis Learning, Inc.

The platform provides unique features that support student success, including degree planning, an early warning system, and a feature to support job placement. Use of platform improves postsecondary outcomes by increasing interaction between students and advisors, ensuring timely and targeted advising to improve student movement through pathways, and facilitating subsequent job placement.

The platform serves students, advisors, instructors, and employers. The platform can be accessed through computers and mobile to facilitate use, especially among disadvantaged students who are more likely to access the internet via their phones. The platform incorporates two systems: (i) a learning management system where students and instructors manage courses and communicate and (ii) a system that integrates course planning, advising and job matching services. The platform is grounded in literature; research on technology-enhanced advising and monitoring suggests that these types of tools can play a significant role in driving student success in college.

African Renewable Energy Distributor Ltd

ARED is a hard-tech as a service company (HAAS). We developed a business in a box solar kiosk, app and software platform to bring connectivity solutions using internet WIFI, intranet solution for offline users, phone charging solutions and with our app we offer additional services such as airtime, mobile money, prepaid electricity, tax payment. We use a micro franchise model to empower mostly women and people with disability. Our vision is to implement the best one stop shop center for our customers in rural and semi urban areas to disrupt the existing informal sector in Africa

AID:Tech

There are currently 2.4 billion people in the world without identity; a prerequisite to access public and financial services. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, 16.9 states everybody on earth should have a legal identity by 2030. By enabling customised services such as asset creation, transfer on top of a Digital Identity infrastructure, AID:Tech’s award winning platform brings social and financial inclusion for the underserved & undocumented through digital ID on the blockchain. AID:Tech provides end-users with a Digital ID profile that offers scope for building extensive financial and social history. It offers a streamlined alternative to existing offerings that are outpaced by current demands – processes are siloed, data are fragmented, where they are often duplicated, misused and lost. These obstacles are not only costly, with $1.1 trillion is lost every year from developing countries due to illicit outflows but stops end-users from financial inclusion and access to social services.

Digital Citizen Fund

The modern world’s shift to a knowledge-based global economy has made it a necessity to provide women with the essential tools to be active, skilled participants of the digital era—especially in societies where gender inequality and shaky economic development are prominent issues. Digital Citizen Fund centers have trained young Afghan women in critical technology and job skills that allow them a chance to compete in an ever-growing global economy connected by the Internet. To date, more than 10,000 young women have been trained in digital and financial literacy, equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a global marketplace, resulting in an improved economy and social environment for their families, communities, and country.

Dot Learn

Africa has an education crisis – high-quality learning is often unavailable and beyond the financial means of many young people. Hardware and internet connection issues prevent these young people from accessing new forms of learning such as online education. Dot Learn solves these issues by encoding educational videos in file sizes that are 100x lighter than MP4 or web videos. With our proprietary file format, five hours of learning can be accessed online at the cost of sending a single text message. We are making online education work on cheap smartphones in Africa and have served 7000 students in Ghana and Nigeria since launch last October.

Hogaru

Hogaru provides solution to a glaring problem in Latin America: the lack of access to job stability and financial security that women in the cleaning industry face. There are 30 million cleaning workers in Latin America. 90% of them work informally, without a contract or social protection, while being paid wages far below the minimum standard. On the other hand, there are 6 million small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in Latin America with a need for a reliable and secure cleaning service. At Hogaru we provide SMBs with a safe, high quality cleaning service, while improving working conditions for cleaning professionals. We offer our workers long-term employment, and access to financial services that help bring them the stability they never enjoyed by working independently. Through the use of technology we are able to support them by training them on the job and connecting them to over 7,000 customers.

iHub

Kenya has a talent challenge, for both employers and workers. In Kenya, where unemployment is a critical issue, we have lots of people with raw technical skills seeking opportunities to prove themselves and earn a living. The education system is unable to keep up with trends in technology and adequately equip students for the jobs of the future. On the employer side, we have a dearth of experienced technical talent to meet the demands of companies locally, and companies are not equipped to train on the job. Developers need exposure and experience, both in technical and soft skills. We think this comes while working with others towards a common goal. We provide upcoming developers with an opportunity to work in teams alongside more experienced engineers on real projects, acting as a trusted intermediary between companies with products to be developed or talent demands, and those developers with limited industry experience.

New Day

The “Digital Economy” takes different forms in different places. In Myanmar, Southeast Asia, where 75% of the population owns smartphones, the digital economy means that we can build inclusive, scalable digital services for the mass market, including the low-income population. However, digital employment services have not caught up to this newfound capability. Low-income job seekers still rely on anecdotal information from friends and family when looking for work. New Day is the developing world’s first smartphone-centric low-income employment platform. Our platform enables profound improvements in job-matching, skills-building, employer transparency, and professional growth. We are developing our product for the 55m person Myanmar market because of its uniquely high smartphone rate (for comparison, India has a smartphone rate of 23%) and booming economic growth (highest in all of Asia). Our commercially viable product will impact millions of people in Myanmar by offering efficient, transparent means to find a job.

Nomanini

There are 500 million unbanked people in Africa who interact with informal merchants for a wide range of services. This channel of high volume but small value transactions requires the unique solutions that Nomanini has built. These potential account holders live on $5 a day and are widely distributed geographically and so existing banking channels, such as branches, ATMs and even agency banking are too expensive to serve them. Nomanini enables financial inclusion via local informal retail merchants, who already serve as a daily touch point for over 80% of people in Africa. Nomanini enables merchants to facilitate a wide-range of basic transactions including mobile top-ups, utility payments, remittances, deposits, withdrawals, account opening and mobile money/card acceptance. Nomanini works with banks to enable existing third party merchant aggregators, such as mobile and FMCG distributors, to acquire and serve merchants efficiently.

SkillSmart

SkillSmart was borne from the frustrations expressed by job seekers and employers that emerged during the Great Recession. Co-founders Jason Green and Mike Knapp were engaging employers nationally and locally, big and small, and were shocked by continued reports that despite high unemployment employers struggled to find individuals “with the right skills.” Yet, those same employers were unable to articulate the skills they needed, over-relying on proxies like degrees or years of experience which disqualify large segments of the population that may have the skills to perform the job. If there isn’t good information about the skills required, it’s extremely hard to create a path to get there. And the consequences of not getting there have profound effects on our communities and our country. By driving from employer demand and connecting employers and job seekers at the skill level, SkillSmart levels the playing field and transforms the talent development process.

Tala

An estimated 2 billion people around the world are financially underserved. They’re hard to serve in part because they don’t have a documented financial history, or credit score, that can help banks and other traditional institutions understand their capacity and needs. Tala has developed an Android application that builds financial identities and delivers instant credit to these populations in Kenya, Tanzania, and the Philippines. Any person with a smartphone in these markets can download Tala’s app via the Google Play store and apply for a short-term, unsecured loan. In lieu of traditional credit reports, Tala’s proprietary underwriting models draw on more than 10,000 mobile data signals including network diversity, social connectedness, geographic patterns, and financial transactions to score borrowers in real time and develop a sense of their financial wherewithal. The whole process, from application to loan disbursement, takes less than five minutes.

Tuteria

Globally, conventional methods of education and learning are transitioning from centralized to distributed, and from standardized to personalized. Such trends have resulted in better learning outcomes, thus leading to huge demand for oneon-one learning. Yet in a country like Nigeria, with 180 million people – there has been no easy, reliable way to find and hire great teachers to learn subjects like Math, Physics, Art etc., or exams like SATs, GMAT, ACCA or even skills like Cooking, Music, Languages, Bead-making etc. Tuteria solves this problem using an online platform where learners can easy find, evaluate, book, pay for and track lessons with a verified local teacher in any subject, skill or exam. For instance, someone looking to learn Math or Violin can connect online with a Math or Violin teacher nearby, determine suitability, pay & schedule lessons, then meet in-person to learn. To date, we’ve transacted over $134,000 worth of lessons.

Leap Skills Academy

In the age of life-long learning and to establish relevance in the digital economy, Leap faces challenges that manifest in the form of lack of awareness, absence of requisite capability and a dearth of opportunity. As an impact oriented skill development organisation, we have been focused on training motivated youth from small town India and have directly worked with close to 5000 students in Haryana, Himachal and UP in the last 4 years through mentoring, training and employment support. Our program combines the strengths of a classroom environment with the convenience, flexibility, and engagement of a mobile learning platform to match students to jobs and inculcate skills imperative to succeed in the digital economy.