Survivors of Modern Slavery Challenge Overview
Solve is an MIT effort. We believe new voices and ideas are required to create a more sustainable and fair future for everyone. We issue open calls to everyone, wherever in the globe, to submit remarkable and diverse solutions to the most pressing global crises. Selected innovators receive MIT’s and our community’s support to increase their impact and drive long-term change. Join us in this mission.
More than 50 million people are imprisoned in modern slavery around the world, with women and children being disproportionately affected. One-third of human trafficking victims are children under the age of eighteen.
While survivors come from various ages and backgrounds, exploitation is more common among migrants and people with lower socioeconomic standing.
If survivors do not have a safe place to go, they are 80 per cent more likely to be victimized again. While many organizations are striving to raise awareness of and reduce the risks of modern slavery and forced labour, survivors require better access to resources and support to thrive in society.
Survivors of contemporary slavery face enormous obstacles in their efforts to restore their lives, including estrangement, a lack of essential papers, and limited access to financial resources, shelter, and viable career options.
Ethically built and deployed technology, such as AI, can improve efficiencies, boost impact, and drive better solutions to the world’s most challenging problems. However, there is still a shortage of support for scalable and technologically focused solutions, as well as organizations that give services to modern slavery survivors.
Organizations around the world are using technology and resources to help survivors of modern slavery rebuild their lives and rejoin society, including bank accounts and credit, affordable housing, childcare, trauma-informed health care, and career placement. We understand that effective change involves more than individual solutions, but also a healthy ecosystem of innovators working toward a common goal.
This Challenge is looking for extraordinary solutions for and by survivors that use ethical technology, such as AI, to improve and scale vital resources by:
- Improve existing resources for legal, financial, physical, psychological, and social well-being.
- We are improving access and knowledge of crucial survivor resources.
- Enhancing communication, data collecting and sharing, and coordination efficiencies to strengthen the provider ecosystem.
- Existing organizations and agencies will be trained and supported in how to reach out to and deal with survivors effectively.
Eligibility of the Survivors of Modern Slavery Challenge
We welcome entries from individuals, groups, and organizations. We strongly encourage and welcome applications from survivors of human trafficking/modern slavery, as well as those who have personal experience with or closeness to it.
Solutions might be for-profit, nonprofit, or hybrid, and they must be at least in the prototype stage.
According to MIT Solve’s Terms of Service, US law prohibits the company from accepting applications from persons who normally reside in Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Ukraine’s Crimea, Donetsk persons’s Republic, or Luhansk People’s Republic. Applications from Venezuela, Belarus, China (including Hong Kong), Saudi Arabia, and Russia will be reviewed legally. They may be withdrawn from the website if MIT Solve cannot accept them according to US law.
Note: The application Challenge deadline is July 1, 2024, 12:00 PM EDT.
Submit your solution. For further information, click here to apply.
