Digital Transport For Africa (DT4A) Innovation Challenge is an exciting opportunity for initiatives. Initiatives that aim to transform transit systems in African cities by leveraging open data and innovation.
DT4A symbolizes a large, diverse network of city governments, residents, civic tech companies, universities, and international development partners.
These people are all committed to growing digital commons and applying the Principles for Digital Development to the goals of sustainable urban mobility and access.
Digital Transport For Africa aims at creating a movement for open transit data across the African continent. This will be by strengthening capacities to work with and leveraging standardized data.
DT4A will provide expertise and tools to accommodate current transport, land use, and planning data (e.g GTFS format) to the African context.
There will be gathering of facts and presenting of cases on how data can help to improve planning and implementation of sustainable mobility.
This will be of good use especially in the paratransit/informal transport sector. DT4A will cultivate innovations to promote and encourage uptake and use of open transit data.
The Digital Transport For Africa Challenge
WRI Africa and WRI Ross center in partnership with AFD (Agence Française de Développement) is pleased to announce DT4A innovation challenge.
The DT4A Innovation Challenge aims to support organizations and initiatives, from private companies to universities and NGOs.
These are entities contributing to the movement for open data across the region and improved planning & implementation of sustainable mobility. Especially in the paratransit or informal transport sector.
Four (4) successful applicants selected by WRI and a jury of experts will each receive an award of $30,000. This is to implement a new initiative over the next 12 months.
Requirements and Qualification
To apply for the DT4A innovation challenge, you must meet the following criteria;
- Academic institutions, Organizations/NGOs, and private companies with projects/initiatives that fit into the selection criteria are eligible.
- Applicants must have the support of local authorities (municipalities) backed with letters of support from city representatives.
- All applicants must be Africans or working in Africa
- Only one entry is per organization is acceptable.
Organizations, including non-profits, academic institutions, and private companies must:
- Be a non-profit, NGO, or private company with official registration where you operate
- Possess a total annual operating budget of over $20,000
- Â Capable of completing an Organizational Capacity Assessment. This will contain questions on internal controls, organizational leadership, audit resolution, accounting, and Technical capacity. This must be in English or French and receive a medium to low-risk rating
- Be able to present the most recent annual audit of the organization. In case there is no audit record then, be able to tender these 3 documents:
-
-
-
- A balance sheet for the recent and previous year
- An income statement for the present and previous year
- Cash flow statement for the past and current year
-
-
- Have at least one key project person with professional working proficiency in English or in French (oral and written). This will help in the submission narrative and financial progress report. Also, aid smooth communication with WRI staff regularly.
Application Process
Applicants have to meet the following criteria to be selected as finalists:
- Show a strong understanding of DT4A’s objectives. Also, must clearly prove how the initiative/innovation aligns with the challenge
- Clearly describe what the innovation is and how it will fill the gap in the community especially for vulnerable/underserved communities
- Explain how the innovation is making use of open-source transit data, tools, and application
- Describe the scalability of the innovation to other regions
- Explain how the grant will be utilized within the given time frame and justify its feasibility
- Describe the impact of the proposed initiative on sustainable urban mobility in line with SDG 11 and the 4 policy goals( Efficiency, Universal access, Green, and Safety)Â
- Present a letter of support from relevant government authoritiesÂ
Interested and qualified applicants can apply using this link.
