In the closing session of FOROMIC held in Barbados on October 3, 2012; the Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Julie T. Katzman, launched a new international call for the Competitiveness and Innovation Division’s Innovation Lab.
The call, entitled “Inclusive Finance”, is funded by the Italian Cooperation and is supported by the beyondBanking, a program within the Financial Markets Division, and by the Multilateral Investment Fund. This is an initiative that enhances the IDB’s current efforts to promote the social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. More information can be found at www.bidinnovacion.org.
“Inclusive Finance” seeks to promote a more inclusive financial sector for people with disabilities – not only as employees, but also as customers. Like the other Innovation Lab projects, “Inclusive Finance” is based on a methodology called “crowdsourcing”, a process whereby the general public responds to a call through the web page and generates the best solutions for inclusion of people with disabilities. The deadline for submitting proposals is December 31, 2012.
The Innovation Lab (I-LAB) is a one-stop shop where people exchange challenges, ideas and solutions for different problems in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the Innovation Lab’s networks, problems are converted into high impact innovations.
The current calls for the Innovation Lab are:
The call “I-LAB: Inclusion in Firms” is open to firms and public and private entities that can present innovative solutions for the labor inclusion of people with disabilities. Priority will be given to those proposals that have a focus on gender. The public will have the opportunity to vote on the proposals with the highest potential impact. Those proposals receiving the most votes will qualify for the second phase. In the second phase, a panel of experts will select the best proposal that may receive non-refundable financial support of up to $50,000 to jump start the implementation of the proposal. Applicants must register and submit their proposals online through the Innovation Lab’s website (www.bidinnovacion.org/inclusion-in-firms).
The call “I-LAB: Disruptive Ideas” is open to everybody (entities and individuals) and its objective is to identify ideas about how to break barriers that limit the labor inclusion of women and men with disabilities. Everybody can submit ideas and vote for those ideas that are the most innovative and that have the highest potential impact. The participants that submitted the ideas that receive the highest number of votes will be invited by the IDB to present their ideas discuss how to implement them in detail with members of the Innovation Lab. Participants must register and submit their ideas on line through the Innovation Lab’s website (www.bidinnovacion.org/disruptive-ideas).
The call “I-LAB: Inclusive Finance” is open to public or private financial institutions and its objective is to support Latin American and Caribbean financial entities to design and implement innovative solutions for the inclusion of people with disabilities (as customers as well as employees) in the financial sector. The public will have the opportunity to vote on the proposals with the highest potential impact. Those proposals receiving the most votes will qualify for the second phase. In the second phase, a panel of experts will select the best proposal that may receive non-refundable financial support of up to $50,000 to jump start the implementation of the proposal. Applicants must register and submit their proposals online through the Innovation Lab’s website (http://www.bidinnovacion.org/inclusive-finance/).
Proposals for all the calls should be submitted no later than December 31, 2012 (COB 6pm ET USA).
