Turn.io, in collaboration with OpenAI and The Agency Fund, has announced the ten organizations selected to participate in the inaugural Chat for Impact GenAI Accelerator in 2024. The organizations will access strategic, technical, operational and financial support to leverage Generative AI and LLM to improve and scale their work in education, health and economic mobility. Generative AI, and in particular large language models (LLMs), have immense potential to transform engagement and provide supportive services to people through chat, but its use is still in its infancy and held back by technical complexity, lack of technical resources, safety concerns, and equity issues. The GenAI Accelerator provides a supportive and in-depth 8-week programme to help organizations navigate these complexities.
“We believe chat and GenAI will play a pivotal role in the future of how these organizations will deliver impact. These solutions aim to make conversations more efficient, streamlined, and scalable, ultimately improving millions of lives. I am astounded by the caliber of organizations, ideas and the passion behind them. Our participants are problem-solvers who don't shy away from difficult questions and see obstacles as opportunities. As we move forward, I am more convinced than ever that we are on the right path, driven by the most powerful force: dedicated, passionate individuals and teams who believe that a better world is not only possible but achievable."- commented Lieze Langford, Head of Accelerators at Turn.io.
The GenAI accelerator will start on 7 May and
culminate in a Demo Day, during which the cohort
will showcase their AI-supported services to the
broader Chat for Impact Community and potential
funders or investors. The Chat for Impact GenAI
Accelerator is a collaboration between Turn.io,
OpenAI and The Agency Fund to drive transformative
change in critical life outcomes and global
well-being through secure AI-supported chat
solutions.
we are excited to announce the cohort
Acceso
- Economic Mobility (El Salvador) Acceso’s
mission is to create fundamental and lasting
positive economic change in the lives of rural
smallholder farming families by connecting
smallholder farmers to markets, providing a pathway
out of poverty, and creating lasting impact in Latin
America and the Caribbean. Through its agtech
platform Extensio, Acceso delivers critical and
timely information for farmer decision-making
(weather, pest alerts, training), increasing
farmers’ productivity and income. Through the
accelerator, their aim is to further develop a more
accurate, scalable and robust Chat solution using
GenAI.
Angaza Elimu
- Education (Kenya) Angaza Elimu is an
edtech company focused on empowering African youth
through on-demand, skill-based learning to help them
thrive in a digital economy. This includes Kalamu,
an AI-powered adaptive and interactive eLearning
platform that delivers a personalized learning
experience to students and amplifies their
engagement with teachers. The organization plans to
advance their existing WhatsApp channels using GenAI
and LLM models to provide teachers with instant
pedagogical support, promoting a ‘teaching at the
right level’ (TaRL) framework.
Aqui Estoy Chat
- Health (Argentina) 'Aquí Estoy’
offers chat-based emotional support to youths
struggling with mental health issues. Leveraging
social media and WhatsApp, they provide accessible,
evidence-based first psychological aid, focusing on
peer-to-peer interventions to ensure no one suffers
in solitude. Volunteers will participate in
simulated conversations powered by GenAI on
WhatsApp, receiving immediate feedback on their
interactions. This innovative approach not only
prepares them more effectively for real-life
scenarios but also enhances their ability to respond
with greater sensitivity and effectiveness.
Additionally, the system provides comprehensive
statistical insights into the major obstacles
encountered during skill acquisition, effective
teaching strategies, and detailed profiles of each
volunteer. This data-driven enhancement aims to
optimize training outcomes and overall volunteer
readiness.
Associação Nova Escola
- Education (Brazil) Nova
Escola is a digital platform that provides over 500
thousand public education teachers in Brazil with
pedagogical support and professional development. On
Nova Escola, teachers find news articles, classroom
tools, such as lesson plans, and self-paced courses,
all free of charge. With over 500 thousand teachers
registered on their platform, Nova Escola’s aim is
to provide educators with an innovative LLM-powered
chat solution on WhatsApp to help them during lesson
planning with GenAI.
Educate Girls
- Education (India) Educate Girls is a
non-profit that focuses on mobilizing communities
for girls' education in India's rural and
educationally backward areas. Working in partnership
with the Government, Educate Girls operates
successfully in over 15,000 villages across
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
By engaging with a huge base of community
volunteers, Educate Girls helps identify, enroll,
and retain out-of-school girls and improve
foundational literacy and numeracy skills for all
children (both girls and boys). Simultaneously,
Educate Girls offers a second chance program for
adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-29) that
builds life skills, agency, and educational
credentials via open schools (Grades 10 and 12).
They aim to use GenAi to create personalized
learning experiences for learners at scale,
addressing their specific educational needs and
challenges and providing access to resources through
WhatsApp.
I-Stem
- Economic Mobility (India) In India, there is a
noticeable lack of awareness and insufficient
support for the blind and low-vision community.
Braille content is scarce, and while technology has
a lot of promise, over 96% of digital content is
inaccessible and incompatible with assistive
technologies such as screen readers. Founded by
blind innovators, I-Stem develops technology to
enhance access to inaccessible content to help blind
and low-vision communities find meaningful
employment and contribute to the economy.
Incorporating GenAI their aim is to develop a
chatbot focused on career discovery and accessible
upskilling via WhatsApp and IVR calls, and to scale
their service through an integration into the
existing Sugamya Bharat app for people with
disabilities in India.
Nivi
- Health (Nigeria) The askNivi chatbot enables health promoters, healthcare providers, payers & pharmaceutical manufacturers to reach, understand & serve patient populations at scale, enabling individuals to achieve their health aspirations. They use data and behavioral science to create a conversational marketplace for healthcare as well as crucial market-shaping insights. The organization aims to upgrade Nivi’s Maternal Health Journey that supports women throughout pregnancy and the first months of parenting, using generative AI in order to serve the most relevant content with optimal timing for each individual based on their self-expressed questions and concerns.
Pinky Promise
- Health (India) Pinky Promise is a first of its kind Instant AI clinic for women’s sexual and reproductive health. The most downloaded women’s health app in India, for all sexual and reproductive health issues, women are able to immediately and privately, chat with a highly qualified gynecologist and get immediate diagnosis and care at a fraction of the price. Today, Indian women with any symptom or question can instantly connect with a Gynecologist on Pinky Promise, get a prescription all within minutes (in just over a dollar) thanks to Pinky Promise’s custom AI. In just 8 months since the launch of their platform, Pinky Promise has scaled to 70k+ downloads on google play, to become the most downloaded women's health app in India, with 10k+ women treated and 84% outcome improvement. Pinky Promise’s ML is trained on more than 250 global medical protocols to suggest diagnosis and treatments for 97% of all reproductive health issues. The organization aims to use GenAI to make sexual and reproductive healthcare instantly available to every woman in India, by allowing them to message us, understand their issue, and connect with our Gynecologists instantly, in a completely frictionless and empathetic manner.
Quipu
- Financial Inclusion (Colombia) Quipu provides informal microbusinesses with working capital loans and supply chain financing using proprietary AI credit scores based on alternative data for users who are 90% rejected by traditional credit bureaus and financial institutions in Colombia. More than 60% of their clients are women entrepreneurs living in low-income neighborhoods across Colombia. The organization aims to leverage GenAI to develop an "Informal CFO" on WhatsApp. This virtual assistant will provide personalized financial guidance to empower microbusiness owners to make informed decisions to strengthen their enterprises, driving sustainable growth and resilience within the informal economy.
Yoco & Harvard Business School researchers
- Economic Mobility (South Africa) Micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries face significant challenges, including access to complementary resources and digital tools, limiting their ability to effectively access and utilize information and advice. Yoco and Harvard researchers plan to use fully personalized AI to empower thousands of small business entrepreneurs in Africa, increase economic mobility, and reduce gender inequality. The partnership will address constraints faced by micro-entrepreneurs, including limited resources to implement AI assistance and access to digital finance tools.
The selection process proved to be highly competitive, with organizations chosen based on multiple essential criteria. These included possessing an established digital service, a demonstrated ability to scale social impact solutions, and a well-articulated Business Case or Theory of Change that highlighted how AI chat solutions could drive positive outcomes. The selected organizations are active in the sectors of Education, Health, or Economic Mobility, demonstrate a readiness to utilize WhatsApp for their chat services and have the organizational capacity to develop and manage these services. They should also maintain a sustainable business strategy to ensure continued impact beyond the accelerator program.
The GenAI accelerator will culminate in a Demo Day where the cohort will showcase their AI-supported services to the broader Chat for Impact Community, OpenAI, and potential investors.