ICTworks

The GSMA mWomen team is delighted to announce the launch of the fourth round of Innovation Fund grants. The goal of the NGO grants is to provide seed funding for the design and launch of economically sustainable products/services, distribution models or marketing campaigns (“offerings”) that will:

• Accelerate the use of mobile technology to achieve development-related goals, specifically the empowerment of resource-poor women
• Provide solutions to the barriers to women’s adoption and use of mobile phones and value-added services (“VAS”)
• Generate lessons and models of success which can be shared with the wider development community, as well as mobile operators

Three to four NGO grants will be awarded in this round, and eligible geographies are: Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. Each grant is $140,000 with no matching requirement and each project should be around six months long, with a launch of the offering by the end of the grant-funded period.

NGO applicants must work in partnership with a mobile operator. The concept note should outline who the MNO partner is, the role it would play and its economic incentive for doing so. By application stage, the operator partnership must be formalised and we will require written evidence of the commitment of the proposed MNO partner to the project.

Get more information at the GSMA mWomen Innovation Grant Page.