WSA Global Champions 2020

"Hack the gap", "Gender equality" and "Disrupt disruptions" were the main topics of the WSA Global Congress 2020, Vienna.  In Vienna, the WSA community exchanged ideas and knowledge under the motto ‘Hack the Gap - Digital solutions for the UN SDGs’. Out of 600 nominees worldwide, 9 social tech startups were awarded as WSA Global Champions. Their solutions not only drive the achievement of the UN SDGs, but also show that digital creativity can make a positive impact on society.

Over 70 jurors selected the 9 WSA Global Champions, a worldwide spectre from Belarus to Australia, from the Republic of Korea to Belgium.

WSA GLOBAL CHAMPIONS 2020

• Government & Citizen Engagement: CitizenLab from Belgium helps governments to involve citizens in well over 100 cities from Brussels to Vancouver. It features participatory tools for consultation processes, voting on budgets, or by starting initiatives to change the political agenda. CitizenLab scales globally and makes social entrepreneurship go places.
• Health & Well Being: In Spain, people suffering from epilepsy live in permanent uncertainty. A wearable earbud tracks brain activity and assesses risk of seizure for epilepsy patients and caregivers MJN’S Next Step checks the risks of having an epileptic seizure before it happens. It improves quality of life and challenges the social stigma of epilepsy
• Learning & Education: The gap between the need for professionals with digital skills and the supply of such a workforce is widening in Lithuania. The global online learning platform BitDegree makes digital skill acquisition simple and attractive. Employer involvement motivate participants and ensures that skill acquisition results in getting a job or a promotion.
• Environment & Green Energy: In Belarus, overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, and ineffective land use lead to soil exhaustion. OneSoil mobile and web-based apps work with satellite imagery and AI to provide farmers with tools to manage crop yield, use fields efficiently and optimize resource use. Precision farming lead to a smaller ecological footprint.
• Culture & Tourism: The Living First Languages Platform from Australia revitalises indigenous languages, creating dynamic, community-led and interactive digital literacy apps. LFPL recovers dying languages and cultures, empowering children to learn their mother tongues and connect to their heritage.
• Smart Settlements & Urbanization: Poverty, war and natural disasters cause millions of people to lack proof of identity. From Spain, People´s Protection app is a multifactorial biometric mobile and desktop solution for accurate identification. Thanks to facial, fingerprint and palm vein recognition, people can manage their ID data efficiently.
• Business & Commerce: Using simple, automated data collection and analysis tools, Impact measurement platform Socialsuite from Australia helps companies monitor to what extent social investments achieve their program goals.
• Inclusion & Empowerment: Visually impaired need to learn Braille to be able to read. The South Korean startup, DOT Incorporation provides interactive digital devices in order to access seamless information in braille and tactile image for the visually impaired people. A patented electromagnetic cell is the backbone of this revolutionary tactile display (watch, e-book, kiosk, etc).
• Young Innovators: In the Philippines, Virtualahan is a pioneering virtual school. It equips low-income, disadvantaged people with digital skills and a mindset to become entrepreneurs of technology. Integrating life-coaching with career guidance and leadership development, Virtualahan uses hearts and technology to get people out of poverty.