Uber is an organization focused on designing and developing new solutions for shelters used in disaster relief. It attacks the root cause of this problem by doing the necessary product development that aid-agencies do not have the resources to do. Uber is developing a range of shelters that meet the needs of various climates, terrains, family sizes and cultures.

Millions of people around the world lack access to power. Consequently, they are forced to rely on costly alternatives like the burning of kerosene, which leads to indoor air pollution and kills an estimated 2 million people each year. As an umbrella organization, Light Up Malawi will work with existing parties on the ground in Malawi and align with other programs working towards clean energy access and poverty alleviation. Light Up Malawi will focus on identifying benefits for ALL parties and crafting self-sustaining business models. By taking policy head on and all the way up to the top, it will negotiate a mutually beneficial program that will allow the providers of alternative energy solutions to easily run pilot programs with lower tariffs.

India’s Department of Women and Children estimated in 2009 that 3 million women are trafficked throughout the country every year – 40% of whom are minors. Kranti will educate and empower girls who have been trafficked by providing a healing home, comprehensive education, and leadership opportunities. First, Kranti seeks to empower the Revolutionaries by putting their life choices – especially regarding education, careers, and marriage – back in their hands by helping them develop numerous, viable future options. Secondly, Kranti focuses on developing them as activists and leaders for their chosen social causes.

According to UN, thousands of women are killed in Pakistan each year in honor-crimes. But the vital code of honor in Pakistani tribes makes challenging these brutal acts a sensitive issue. So instead of directly attacking these tribal customs, Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) promotes positive aspects of their tradition like embroidery, music, and language and simultaneously raises awareness about honor crimes through cricket matches and theater performances. This approach not only ensures the consent of tribal communities, but encourages their participation in PDI activities.

1 billion people don’t have access to clean water and 2.6 billion people don’t have access to hygienic toilets. Who Gives A Crap’s solution? Non-profit toilet paper. Seriously. Who Gives A Crap wants to produce environmentally friendly toilet paper and sell it at the same price as competitors, but donate all their profits to water sanitation projects in the developing world.

Without access to low cost diagnostic tools, millions of people in the Global South suffer from neglected diseases which could be easily treated or cured if detected early enough. LavaAmp is a portable, rugged, inexpensive thermal cycler that can perform reliable DNA tests for infectious diseases in low resource environments. LavaAmp is not a diagnostic method for one specific disease, but a hardware platform that can be used to test for many different conditions. The vision for LavaAmp is that it is part of a new, evidence-based Public Health approach to managing both new pandemics and neglected diseases.

There’s a lack of low-cost assistive devices for people who are visually impaired. Therefore, AUIRE has developed a low cost color and money bill identifier portable device. This device reads the color of an object or the value of a money bill and speaks the name in loud sound. The root cause of the problem is the high cost of this kind of devices. We propose a low cost device that will lead to a overall decrease in the prices practiced in the market.

Despite Native American lands housing enough renewable energy to power the US several times over, the estimated 2.1 million Native Americans are the poorest of any ethnic group in the United States. Mosaic Ventures is working to form a fund for tribes to vertically integrate investments into clean technologies, manufacturing projects, and developments, enabling tribes to drive economic growth while providing the United States a path to a post-carbon economy.

Our world’s urban poor desperately need safe, sanitary and very-low-cost housing. Slum housing, which shelters 1 billion people around the world, is not only the largest expense for many poor families, but also a direct cause of poor health and income instability. MiCasa Ventures works directly with the poor to design a viable housing solution by acquiring inexpensive land adjacent to the city, developing sustainable infrastructure, employing the poor in the manufacturing of materials and construction of homes, and using micro-loans to finance development.