Application Deadline: July 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM EDT.
This Challenge seeks exceptional solutions for and by survivors that leverage ethical technology – like AI – to improve and scale critical resources by:
- Bettering existing resources for legal, financial, physical, psychological, and social well-being
- Improving access to, and awareness of, critical survivor resources
- Strengthening the ecosystem of providers by enhancing efficiencies in communication, data collection and sharing, and coordination
- Training and supporting existing organizations and agencies in ways to reach out to and appropriately work with survivors.
Challenge Overview
Over 50 million people are trapped in modern slavery worldwide, with women and children disproportionately affected. One in three human trafficking victims are children under the age of 18. While survivors include individuals of all ages and backgrounds, exploitation is more prevalent among migrants and those with lower socioeconomic status. Eighty percent of survivors are re-victimized if they do not have a safe place to go. While many groups are working to educate about and mitigate the risks of modern slavery and forced labor, improved solutions to provide resources and access to support are needed for survivors to thrive in society.
Survivors of modern slavery face tremendous challenges in their efforts to rebuild their lives including alienation, lack of basic documents, and limited access to financial resources, shelter, and viable employment opportunities. Ethically designed and deployed technology, such as AI, has the potential to enable greater efficiencies, increase impact, and drive better solutions to the world’s most complex challenges. Yet, there is still a lack of support for scalable and tech-focused solutions and the organizations that provide services to survivors of modern slavery.
Organizations across the world are innovatively leveraging technology and scaling resources to support survivors of modern slavery as they rebuild their lives and reintegrate into society – resources such as bank accounts and credit, affordable housing, childcare, trauma-informed health care, and career placement. They know that effective change requires not just support for individual solutions, but support for a thriving ecosystem of innovators united in a common purpose.
- Finalists will be invited to a virtual pitch event to present their solutions in front of distinguished judges. A total pool of $300,000 in funding is available for up to 5 winners of the Challenge. This funding will be disbursed as follows: $75,000 each to 2 grand prize winners, and $50,000 each to 3 runner-up prize winners.
- In addition to funding, each Challenge winner will participate in a 6-month support program run by MIT Solve in collaboration with the HPE Foundation and The Anti-Slavery Collective that will include:
- In-kind resources curated to support entrepreneurs across critical areas including pro bono legal support, software licenses, and marketing
- Virtual orientation session
- Virtual monthly cohort convenings during the support program period
- Virtual check-in meetings between Solve staff with each winner
- Professional executive leadership coaching for winners
- Virtual capacity building workshops hosted by experts focused on potential topics such as Participatory Design, Theory of Change, Impact Metrics, or other themes
- Connections to expertise from global networks
Eligibility
- They invite submissions from individuals, teams, and/or organizations. They especially encourage and welcome applications from survivors or those with lived experience of or proximity to human trafficking/modern slavery.
- Solutions can be for-profit, nonprofit, or hybrid models and must be at least at the prototype stage.
- Per MIT Solve’s Terms of Service, US law prevents MIT Solve from accepting applications from people who are ordinarily resident in Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, or the Crimea, Donetsk People’s Republic, or Luhansk People’s Republic areas of Ukraine. Applications from people in Venezuela, Belarus, China (including Hong Kong), Saudi Arabia, and Russia will undergo legal review and may be removed from the website if US law prevents MIT Solve from accepting them.
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