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We ask all applicatants to make sure they have read all the
following sections carefully before writing and submitting an
application.
Early stage innovations should have a clear rationale for why the innovation has
the potential to have a greater impact on development challenge(s) and to be
more cost-effective or sustainable than existing solutions. For later stage
innovations, we look for greater evidence of expected impacts and
effectiveness.
We also look for teams that are committed to evaluating their own success, with
plans to collect data or feedback as needed to help inform decisions. We realize
that it is often difficult to predict how an innovation will develop and grow over
time, and we aim to encourage our innovators to continually refine their
strategies as needed during the process of scaling up. This may include testing
the innovations social impact, ability to reach the poor, and commercial
viability if relevant. We support innovators who incorporate and generate useful
knowledge - including rigorous evidence of social impacts and learnings about
successful implementation approaches - during their paths to scale.
Potential to Scale
We seek innovations that have potential to eventually scale up and meaningfully
improve the lives of millions of people living in developing countries. We ask
all of our applicants to share their vision and plans for growing their innovations
to a large scale, as we hope that many of the innovations we invest in will
eventually reach this goal. Innovations should have strong potential to be
politically, logistically, and financially viable at scale, whether they plan to
commercialize or attract ongoing public support.
Team
We look for innovators with the relevant expertise and capabilities to achieve
success, with clear roles, responsibilities, and time commitments needed to be
successful. Teams should be able to demonstrate strong knowledge of the
problems they are addressing and what approaches are likely to work in the
local environment surrounding their innovation (e.g. operational, geographical,
political, or social context). It is especially important that teams demonstrate the
ability to identify and respond to risks and changes that are likely to arise as
growth is achieved. We also look for the teams ability to engage effectively
with partners in government, private sector, and/or community leaders as
needed.
At the Pilot stage, we look for promising ideas and capable teams. We value
any relevant evidence or research findings that demonstrate why your
innovation is needed, such as evidence of customer demand or interest in your
innovation, however, we do not expect that strong evidence already exists to
prove the value of your innovation. At the Pilot stage, detailed operational plans
are not necessary but teams should develop clear metrics to judge success.
At the Test & Transition stage, innovations should have already demonstrated
some initial evidence of success through early pilot-testing. Teams should have
a strong understanding about specific partners, team member capabilities, or
other requirements that will be needed to bring the innovation to a larger scale,
with plans for attracting other sources of financing or support from partners as
needed. During this stage, innovation teams should propose an appropriate
strategy to track and rigorously assess social impacts, cost-effectiveness,
operational feasibility, and/or commercial viability if relevant. This may include
experimenting with different methods of reaching customers or delivering
services. Teams proposing to conduct rigorous impact evaluations should aim to
measure causal impacts of their innovations relative to a control or comparison
group where possible.
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