Call summary :

As global humanitarian needs continue to rise, there is an increasing demand to respond with innovative, impactful and scalable solutions powered by mobile and digital technology. On 11 December, the GSMA opened the GSMA Innovation Fund for Humanitarian Challenges. The Fund will provide grants as well as additional non-financial and technical support to projects that leverage mobile and digital technology to pilot and scale solutions that address humanitarian challenges in low- and middle-income countries. The specific objective of this new Fund is to test innovative use cases, partnerships, and business models that can improve access to sustainable digital-enabled solutions for those who are affected by – or vulnerable to – humanitarian challenges.

The Fund is open to applications from for-profit small and growing enterprises (commercially viable start-ups, small and medium enterprises, and social enterprises with up to 250 employees).

Successful projects will receive a grant of between £100,000 and £250,000 to scale their innovation over a 15 to 18 month period.

The Fund is interested in solutions that use digital technology, especially mobile, which:
- Prevent and minimise the impact of humanitarian crises through preparedness and early warning. This can be for challenges such as natural hazards or drivers of food insecurity (extreme weather, drought).
- I mprove preparedness and response to humanitarian challenges using frontier tech-enabled solutions including AI.
- Respond to the needs of crisis-affected populations, including internally displaced persons and refugees, through access to humanitarian assistance, services, and life-saving information.
- Are existing innovations that can be adapted or replicated in a new context to respond to a humanitarian challenge.

A higher priority will be given to the projects that demonstrate:
- A clear pathway and plan for long-term sustainability and social impact (such as through user uptake, business and financial viability, and follow on funding), demonstrating potential for scale and replication.
- How mobile-enabled technology can be innovatively applied to support communities to prepare or respond to crises.
- How mobile-enabled solutions can be inclusive and widespread, especially how the project will actively reach female users and other groups, such as persons with disabilities.
- The value proposition of these business models for mobile operators and other technology companies and how a partnership with these companies in the short or long term could help benefit these business models.
- Their understanding of the policy and regulatory issues in the region of project implementation, and a clear understanding of the regulations that will govern project implementation.
- Their understanding of the mobile connectivity landscape in the region of implementation.

What should projects demonstrate?
We are looking for projects that demonstrate:
- How mobile-enabled technology can be innovatively applied to support communities to anticipate and prepare for crises.
- How mobile-enabled solutions can be inclusive and widespread.
- Which business models enable mobile/digital solutions to be adopted sustainably and at scale.
- What role mobile operators and other digital actors can play in developing, testing, delivering these solutions, supporting proven interventions to go to scale.
- What partnerships at local and regional levels are required for improving and enabling conditions (infrastructure, access to mobile, regulation, domestic support) so that innovative digital solutions can be adopted, sustained and scaled.
- An understanding of the policy and regulatory issues in the region and a clear understanding of the regulations that will govern project implementation.
- An understanding of the mobile connectivity landscape in the region of implementation.

What level of project maturity are you looking for?
Through the Fund, the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation team aims to:
- Test innovative use-cases, partnerships and business models in selected geographies.
- Generate and share insights and evidence from these innovations to benefit humanitarian and mobile industry stakeholders.

The GSMA will assess all stages of product development, but preference will be given to projects/solutions that have already been successfully piloted and tested with user.

The Fund is open to applicants whose projects are implemented in countries that are eligible to receive official development assistance (see OECD DAC) in the following regions:
- Africa - Middle East - South and Southeast Asia - Pacific - The Caribbean - La