Red Cross invites entries for Enable Makeathon

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Global Diversity Innovation Hub (GDI Hub) are calling for entries for “Enable Makeathon 2.0” to crowdsource innovative solutions by and with persons with disabilities (PwDs) for challenges faced by them.

Applications are invited from PwDs, designers, the scientific and innovation community, manufacturers and entrepreneurs. The deadline for the applications is September 30. This year, the programme addresses 12 accessibility and employability related challenges faced by persons with hearing or sight impairment or with locomotor disabilities.

A panel of experts will review the entries and 15 teams will be shortlisted to participate in the co-creation camp where they will interact with PwDs, designers and investors, mentors and domain experts. This year, the Enable Makeathon 2.0 (EM2) co-creation camps will take place simultaneously in Bengaluru hosted by the ICRC and in London hosted by the GDI Hub and University College London.

The grand finale will be held on February 6 2018, where three winners will receive cash awards of USD 25,000, USD 15,000 and USD 10,000 and further incubation support. Commenting on the project, Tarun Sarwal, Innovation Advisor at the ICRC said, “Enable Makeathon is a unique social movement.

It brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts with persons with disability to find solutions for the real challenges that they would like to address. The platform allows us to take ideas from their conceptualisation to execution to testing in a fairly short span of time.

Just like the first edition of Enable Makeathon, I have no doubt that Enable Makeathon 2.0 will also be a resounding success and deliver effective, inclusive solutions that are much needed in challenging contexts globally.”