Development Gateway is a Grand Challenges Explorations Winner

Development Gateway is proud to announce that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Development Gateway, in conjunction with its Feedback Labs partners GroundTruth Initiative, Global Giving, and Ushahidi, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled “Bridge building for the last mile: Education feedback loops in three Nairobi slums”.

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. Development Gateway’s project is one of more than 80 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 11 grants announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To receive funding, Development Gateway and other Grand Challenges Explorations Round 11 winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas that included development of interoperability in social good data, agriculture development, and neglected tropical diseases.

Development Gateway’s proposal has an ambitious goal: combine citizen-generated data with official government data in a way that allows slum dwellers to access and use this information to make decisions to improve their community. We aim to demonstrate a fix for the broken feedback loops that exist in philanthropy and development.

The use case will focus on education data in three slums of Kenya: Kibera, Mathare, and Mukuru. Our initial test case and geographic scope are very focused on areas where the consortium has extensive experience. However, the methodology and technology we introduce will allow anyone to deliver this kind of information across platforms and contexts, worldwide.

About Grand Challenges Explorations

Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, over 850 people in more than 50 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants. The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.

About Development Gateway

Development Gateway’s mission is to empower development professionals, governments, and citizens with the information they need to build a better world. We make development information easier to gather, access, use, and understand through a combination of global advisory services and custom technology solutions. We focus on e-government, aid effectiveness, knowledge management, and e-procurement solutions with more than 10 years of experience in Africa, East Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Development Gateway’s clients and partners include key players in the international development space, including more than 24 developing country governments; development agencies such as the World Bank, USAID, the European Commission, UNDP, UNICEF, and African Development Bank; and innovative private and non-governmental organizations around the world.