Funding Friday...

Develop Impact - Issue 124

Hi friends!

I hope you have had a good work week. It has been a busy week for our team at Glean Asia as we are kickstarting another project we just won. We hope to share with you more about the project soon.

In the meantime, we are sharing another nine funding opportunities with you to support your #tech4good work in developing and implementing technological solutions to address critical challenges and help build a more sustainable and inclusive world.

Please let me know if you have anything you’d like to share with this community, I would love to hear from you!

Enjoy reading!

Jesse

What’s funding this week…

SEARCA: Grants for Research towards Agricultural Innovative Solutions

SEARCA GRAINS offers short-term starter funds for collaborative actions aimed at transformative innovations for more sustainable agriculture and rural development across Southeast Asia.

GRAINS will support the translational research and community knowledge transfer of technologies and products that will lead to diffusion or adoption through a partnership with the players and actors in the agro-innovation ecosystem, such as scientists, inventors, technology business incubators and accelerators, funders and backers, universities, research institutions, as well as startups, small and medium enterprises, corporations, and non-government organizations that share the goal of SEARCA.

$5 Million for Innovative Climate Technology Solutions

The Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate Innovation commits $30M to fund big bet projects that accelerate technological advances in climate information and action. Selected organizations may receive up to $5M in funding, along with access to Google’s technical expertise and products, to accelerate progress toward a more sustainable and resilient future.

We want to support the work of nonprofits, experts, and organizations around the world that will accelerate advances in climate information and action. We are looking for solutions that help the global community illuminate previously opaque climate challenges and enable collective climate actions. Past Google.org supported initiatives to help map emissions on a global scale, restore ecosystems, and enable small businesses to understand their carbon footprint.

$1 Million for Social Media Misinformation Research

In this request for proposals (RFP), Meta is offering awards to global social science researchers interested in exploring integrity issues related to social communication technologies. They will provide a total of $1,000,000 USD in funding for research proposals that aim to enrich our understanding of challenges related to integrity issues on social media and social technology platforms.

The goal for these awards is to support the growth of scientific knowledge in these spaces and to contribute to a shared understanding across the broader scientific community and the technology industry on how social technology companies can better address integrity issues on their platforms. Research is not restricted to focusing on Meta apps and technologies.

2023 YSEALI Advancing Agribusiness Digital Marketing Regional Workshop

The five-day YSEALI Advancing Agribusiness Digital Marketing Regional Workshop will be conducted in Dili, Timor-Leste on February 27 – March 3, 2023, and empower young leaders to use technology to dive into agribusiness growth in Southeast Asia. The workshop will enable participants to develop digital marketing strategies, engage in a pitch competition, learn more from local sustainable agribusinesses, and experience cultural exchange.

Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge 2022

Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge  2022 launched by Enterprise Singapore, aims to bring together industry partners and creative innovators to co-develop sustainable solutions in key areas such as sustainable materials, packaging, zero-waste, and many more.

For this challenge, each of their industry partners brings a unique challenge statement addressing key themes of Green Buildings, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Food Sources, Zero-waste, Sustainable Materials, and Packaging.

Winning innovators will access a unique opportunity for co-innovation with corporates, benefiting from their extensive expertise, mentorship, and resources. Other prize rewards include potential grant support from Enterprise Singapore, and S$70,000 from Hexagon Group, alongside potential funding and test-bedding opportunities from the industry partners themselves.

Visa Accelerator Program 2023 for Startups across the Asia Pacific Region

The Visa Accelerator Program is now open for applications to help startups unlock their growth potential and scale across the Asia Pacific region, by collaborating on joint solutions that address the biggest opportunities in digital payments.

The Visa Accelerator Program is designed for growth-stage companies looking to expand their market reach, with a focus on product solutions, technical integration, and fast-tracked commercialization.

Together with Visa’s payment experts, product architects, and business development teams, startups in the Visa Accelerator Program get to rapidly co-develop, test, and iterate new solutions, while pursuing tangible go-to-market opportunities with their extensive network of financial institutions, merchants, and digital partners over a course of six months.

Academy for Women Entrepreneurs Program in Vietnam (PDF)

The U.S. Mission in Vietnam’s Public Affairs Sections (PAS) is pleased to announce an open competition for non-profit organizations, civil society organizations, and individuals to carry out new cohorts of the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs Vietnam (AWE) in 2023.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of States’ Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) since 2019, AWE has trained more than 16,000 women entrepreneurs across nearly 90 countries with the knowledge, networks, and access they need to start and scale successful businesses. At a local level, AWE harnesses the power of public-private sponsors, local partnerships, and U.S. exchange alumni networks to help women and their businesses grow, driving localized prosperity in communities.

In 2022, the American Centers in Vietnam, in partnership with the Women’s Initiative for Startups and Entrepreneurship (WISE) launched AWE for the first time with two cohorts in Hanoi and Can Tho. The project includes three main activities: English language training, training through the online platform DreamBuilder, and a nationwide entrepreneurship challenge.

AWE is a flexible educational opportunity that combines localized business practices and mentoring with the online platform DreamBuilder, created through a partnership with Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School for Global Management and the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation. Cohorts of approximately 50 women meet online and in person to learn core business skills such as strategic planning, marketing, and finance, then discuss the material with local facilitators, business leaders, and mentors

The McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism (Grants up to $15K)

The McGraw Fellowship provides editorial and financial support to journalists who need the time and resources to produce a significant investigative or enterprise story that provides fresh insight into an important business, financial or economic topic. The McGraw Center provides editorial supervision during the Fellowship. It works with the Fellows to develop their projects during the reporting phase and frequently edit the completed stories. It also assists with placing the articles in established print, audio, or digital outlets. The stories run on the McGraw Center website as well.

Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize

The Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize (“Prize”) is for young Asian artists who create digital art – working with a medium of the future.

By dedicating the Prize to the digital image, a medium that is already fast becoming the visual currency of everyday life in the twenty-first century, we wish to engage and empower the talent of the future. The Prize underlines the importance of Julius Baer’s support of the arts and young talent, as well as a recognition of the current shifting frontiers in life and work.

The second iteration of the Prize is open to residents of Greater China, India, or Southeast Asia aged between 21 and 40 years old at the time of submission, although they need not be a citizen of the region. The Prize will include an inaugural three-month Art and Technology Accelerator program for six winning artists to develop a new piece of digital art and prepare them to become creative entrepreneurs ready for the digital age.

The Prize is supported by an esteemed advisory board, panel of judges, and mentors. Every application will be reviewed, and six winners will then be selected for incubation and mentored by leading luminaries from the art and business worlds. These six winning works will be showcased via an interactive virtual exhibition in the second half of 2023.