FINALISTS FOR NINTH ANNUAL VODAFONE AMERICAS FOUNDATION WIRELESS INNOVATION PROJECT REVEALED
Eight finalists with potential life-changing connected innovations competing to win a total of $600,000 in prize money
REDWOOD CITY, CA – April 26, 2017 – The
Vodafone Americas Foundation
today announced the finalists for its ninth annual Wireless Innovation
Project (WIP). The eight finalists, who span non-profits, universities,
and social entrepreneurs, were chosen
as solutions with the highest potential to make a difference for
communities around the world and create lasting social change. Each
project will look to join the 24 previous winners who have received
Foundation support through the competition to help bring
their innovation to scale.
“Each
year we review incredible technologies as part of our Wireless
Innovation Project and our 2017 finalists continue that pattern with
projects across healthcare, wildlife preservation,
augmented reality, childhood education, banking, and more,” said June
Sugiyama, Director, Vodafone Americas Foundation. “The creative and
innovative solutions presented this year show the potential ability of
technology and connectivity to uniquely benefit
communities worldwide.”
Since
launching in 2009, the Vodafone Americas Foundation WIP has awarded
$4.9 million to scalable solutions focused on “Connecting for Good” that
help address critical issues such as water
sanitation, vaccine monitoring, mobile health diagnostics, and more. As
a result, WIP-supported innovations have directly impacted 40 million
individual lives across more than 40 countries – underscoring the
Foundation’s commitment to fostering social change.
Past WIP winners have also gone on to future success through
international accolades, various industry prizes, and more than $9.5
million in additional funding following their involvement with WIP.
From the eight finalists announced today, a panel of judges will select three winners, to be showcased during the
Social Innovation Summit 2017
in Chicago, IL on June 6-8. The first place winner will be awarded
$300,000, second place $200,000, and third place $100,000, paid over a
period of three
years, to continue developing their projects.
The Wireless Innovation Project’s 2017 finalists are:
- EarlySee –
A
potentially revolutionary smartphone-based mobile application which can
detect Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children earlier, more
efficiently, and at lower cost. Parents can administer this test
within their own home, to recognize ASD as soon as possible, as some
symptoms can occur as early as the first to second year. This ease of
use can help identify the signs of autism earlier than current practices
so appropriate service and supports can be put
into place to provide the most successful outcomes for children with
ASD.
- SafetyAR –
Roughly 135 children die daily due to pedestrian injuries- a tragic but
preventable death. Safety AR leverages the power of smartphone-based
augmented reality to create virtual environments to help children gain
cognitive and perceptual abilities needed to develop safe pedestrian
skills. Using the best of today’s technology, child
pedestrians can learn how to navigate chaotic and dangerous traffic
environments, potentially saving 50,000 children over the course of one
year.
- Community Cellular–
This project aims to bring cellular connectivity to the roughly
10 percent of the world’s population, or 800 million people, who live
beyond the reach of a traditional mobile tower and are isolated from the
rest of their country with no simple way to communicate. Mobile access
will have positive social and economic impacts
on these individuals. Through a new mobile phone technology that
provides local coverage at a fraction of the cost of current mobile
towers, CCN hopes to bridge the “last mile” connectivity issue.
-
DreamSave – An
innovative mobile solution with the potential to help millions of
unbanked members of informal savings groups around the world break the
cycle
of poverty. For the first time ever, people who have been invisible to
the global economy will have direct access to a wide range of modern
financial services, even if they live miles from the nearest bank.
DreamSave will leverage mobile money integration,
machine learning, behavioral science, and ground breaking new
technology optimized for remote areas with limited internet access. By
designing DreamSave as part of a broader digitally-connected community,
users will also have access to a wide range of related
services, unlocking their potential to create lasting social and
economic change.
- ENVision
–
Between 30-50 percent of people in developing countries are working in
the informal economy, not out of choice, but necessity. Low-literate and
with little education, many are unable to distinguish between
revenue and profit. ENVision is a simple open source offline mobile
application that helps these workers understand their business
performance without needing a computer. Utilizing a pictorial interface
and real-time data visualization, informal workers can
see their inventory levels, place orders, and calculate sales, which
will ultimately improve their livelihoods.
- Health-Aware Personal Assistant –
Recent research has shown that mobile health applications tend to
neglect several important user groups, such as users with low literacy,
the elderly, or people with minor visual impairment. On the other hand,
most personal assistant systems only search
through the internet and bulk-feed the information. Health-Aware
Personal Assistant personalizes the available health information based
on the user’s mobile health data collected through mobile and wearable
sensors. It also has a verbal component that interprets
the data, allowing immediate, and easily digestible information for
those groups commonly neglected by mobile health systems.
- PathVis
– A
smartphone-based detection platform built to directly monitor and detect
infectious diseases afflicting over 250 million people world-wide. This
detection technology can provide data in less than 30
minutes- which can provide health organizations with real-time
surveillance to decrease costs and increase efficiency in identifying
outbreaks and preventing further spread of disease.
- WIPER –
A
wireless anti-poaching collar for elephants and other animals across
Africa that will automatically send the location of the animal to
authorities when a gunshot is detected. WIPER can disrupt poaching
and prevent irreparable damages to the environmental ecosystem through
innovative ballistic shockwave detection, a tool that cannot be tricked
by gun mufflers regularly used by poachers.
About the Vodafone Americas Foundation
The
Vodafone Americas Foundation is part of Vodafone’s global network of 27
foundations. It is affiliated with Vodafone Group. In addition to the
Wireless Innovation Project, the Vodafone Americas
Foundation supports programs in the United States to Improve People’s
Lives, Support the Development Sector, Spark Innovation, and Empower
Women and Girls. For more information, please visit:
www.vodafone-us.com.
About Vodafone Group
Vodafone
is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and provides
a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed
communications. Vodafone has mobile
operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 49 more,
and fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. As of 31 December 2016,
Vodafone had 470 million mobile customers and 14.3 million fixed
broadband customers. For more information, please visit:
www.vodafone.com.
Source: Vodafone media announcement