Affordable High-Tech for Humanitarian Aid

The European Union and its member states are major humanitarian donors. Humanitarian crises and disasters have increased in number, complexity, and severity over the last 25 years.

Given the scale of today’s crises and disasters, funding to cover humanitarian needs cannot keep up.

The humanitarian system is being challenged to do more, for more people, and at greater cost. Cooperation between international organisations and NGOs responding to crises, end-users and local actors, research and scientific communities and the private sector is crucial in this respect.

Introducing innovative solutions for the delivery of humanitarian aid could help enhance the humanitarian response, which is particularly important for those in a most vulnerable situation.

Solutions should be developed through a frugal innovation approach, and should be novel and based on advanced technologies and services, demonstrating the added value and potential of one or more advanced technologies (no Information and Communication Technology-only solutions).

Tested and proven in a humanitarian aid delivery, these solutions should be safe, scalable, resource-sustainable, replicable and usable in other contexts.

Innovative solutions should be inclusive, i.e. co-created and developed by different stakeholders with local actors, and accessible to a large number of people in a given context of humanitarian aid delivery settings.

Timetable

2017 fourth quarter – contest opens

2020 first quarter – deadline to submit applications

2020 third quarter – prize awarded

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