HiiL Innovating Justice Challenge 2017 for Entrepreneurs

Application Deadline: 30th June 2017

Eligible Countries: The HiiL Justice Accelerator particularly encourages applications from Africa and the Middle East.

To be taken at (country): Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Field of Award: The HiiL Justice Accelerator has identified a few key “pain points” across the world, in which areas we particularly encourage applications:

• Crime and Law Enforcement — innovations improving relations between citizens and police or improving crime reporting
• Family Justice — innovations helping families solve disputes or injustices around, for example, divorce, birth, child rights
• Neighbor Disputes — innovations creating efficient, effective, and fair ways to solve disputes between neighbors
• Employment Justice — innovations addressing employment disputes, business formalization, work conditions or job security
• Migration Justice — innovations tackling injustices felt by migrants including rights enforcement, safe travel, and basic security needs
• Land Disputes — innovations solving land disputes over title/ownership or improving protection of property rights

Note that if your innovation does not specifically address one of these areas, you are still eligible to apply! Simply make sure to tell us how your startup 1) addresses a specific justice need in your community; and 2) has some sort of a legal element.

About the Award: In the way that justice is synonymous with fairness, justice can refer to a broad range of issues. Within this broad range of issues, the HiiL Justice Accelerator is focused on a particular aspect of justice: the legal element. There are two ways to apply:

• The Call for Innovations: The Call for Innovations is our primary call for teams working on a justice innovation. If you: 1) have a team; and 2) are actively working on a justice innovation, or have a strong idea and commitment to work on it, this is the right place for you!
• The Call for Talent: The Call for Talent is our primary call for individuals who can be leaders in driving justice innovation forward. If you don’t have a team but have a very useful skill set and are very driven to make a strong contribution to justice ventures or justice reform initiatives, apply here!

Eligibility: 

The Call for Innovations:

• The founder and applicant should be 18 years of age or older.
• The venture must be committed to providing access to justice underpinned by evidence showing justice needs
• The person(s) with whom we engage should be the founder or a co-founder of the organization and should be able to make key, high-level, and direction-shifting decisions (such as whether or not to take investments and who to partner with) on behalf of the entire organization.
• The innovation must be able to demonstrate a focus on creating strong social and justice impact, a potential to scale, and a viable route to reaching financial sustainability.

The Call for Talent:

• The applicant should be 18 years of age or older.
• The applicant should have proven entrepreneurial skills, talent, or mindset to create new innovations
• The applicant ideally should have an active engagement for justice or peace in their daily work, or be inspired to create such an engagement

Selection Criteria:

The Call for Innovations:

• New ventures or novel ideas with a strong potential of delivering concrete justice results for citizens, workers, families or small and medium-sized businesses.
• Innovative justice initiatives that are already making a difference.
• Unique initiatives that are financially sustainable, have measurable impact and are scalable across countries and regions.
• Internally driven, impact-motivated entrepreneurs and innovators creating new ideas in areas that need them most
• Partners around the world creating innovative services, ideas, and procedures that can empower and support HiiL’s work

The Call for Talent:

• Needs a “justice entrepreneur mindset”- active engagement for justce or peace; relevantqualifications in an area needed for justice innovation or an interesting new angle on justice; and ideally focused on one of the Pain Points listed below.
• Vision, tenacity, team builder, and inspired towards making justice accessible to all

Value of Award: 

The Call for Innovations: Winners receive:

• Up to 20,000 EUR in equity-free funding;
• Business Development Services and Acceleration;
• Showcasing and exposure internationally
• Access to an international network of mentors
• Potential future funding, and assistance finding more

The Call for Talent: Winners receive:

• 10 winners will be invited to local events, with some paid travel
• International exposure as a promising profile in justice innovation
• Potential support locally for ideas or activities
• Potential team members to carry out an idea
• Potential opportunities to assist justice ventures in their internationalization efforts

How to Apply: 

The Call for Talent process:

• Applicants fill in the application form by June 30.
• Some applicants will be contacted for an interview.
• The most promising potential justice leaders will be invited to participate in local events in September.
• Following the Boostcamp, we guide our Talent winners in one of the following ways:
  1. joining an existing local Innovation;
  2. bringing an existing innovation from another country into their own
  3. entering an incubation track, in which their own ideas are supported and developed
  4. entering into discussions with the Accelerator team to be a part of our efforts in their country.

Click here to apply to the Call for Innovations

Click here to apply for the Call for Talent

Visit Program Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: HiiL