Most voted projects may receive up to $50,000 in grants
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced a call for innovative ideas to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities as financial sector clients and workers in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The competition organized by the IDB’s Innovation Lab is open to public and private financial institutions, either regulated or non-regulated, from the Bank’s 48 member countries for projects to be carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean. Participants must register and submit their proposals at the lab’s website, bidinnovacion.org.
Proposals, which must be submitted by December 31, 2012, will be put to a vote by the general public. The most voted ideas will be evaluated by a panel of experts, who will select the best ones to receive grants of up to $50,000 for their implementation.
The call for solutions is financed with resources from the Italian Cooperation, in coordination with the Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) and the beyondBanking program of the IDB’s Structured and Corporate Finance Department.
About the Innovation Lab
The Innovation Lab, a virtual platform managed by the IDB’s Competitiveness and Innovation Division, uses crowdsourcing to foster the exchange of original ideas and find high-impact solutions to diverse development problems in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The lab currently has two other competitions underway:
Inclusion in Firms: open to public and private companies and organizations with innovative solutions for labor inclusion of people with disabilities. Priority will be given to proposals with a focus on gender. The most voted ideas will qualify for a second phase, in which a panel of experts will select the best proposals. Projects may receive grants of up to $50,000 for their implementation. Applicants must register and submit their proposals at www.bidinnovacion.org/inclusion-in-firms.
Disruptive Ideas: open to organizations and individuals with ideas to break barriers to labor inclusion of people with disabilities. Participants with the most voted proposals will be invited by the IDB to present their ideas and discuss their implementation with the Innovation Lab’s staff. Participants must register and submit their ideas at www.bidinnovacion.org/disruptive-ideas.
Filed under: Banking, Caribbean, Development, Economy, Microfinance, Poverty, finance, inclusion, Latin America
