Open Call for Sustainable Cities Challenge Varanasi

Deadline Date: September 05, 2024

Donor Name: Toyota Mobility Foundation

Grant Size: More than $1 million

The Toyota Mobility Foundation is looking for innovators to create innovative, data-driven solutions that make crowded areas of Varanasi’s old city of Kashi safer and more accessible for religious tourists, local residents and vulnerable populations (such as elderly people and people with disabilities).

Successful solutions might include: 

• Tools that support the city to better manage overcrowding events
• Interventions that improve citizen decision-making
• Services that support vulnerable groups.

Benefits

• They are supporting innovators to develop solutions by providing:
  • Up to ten $50,000 implementation grants in the semi-finalist stage
  • Up to five $130,000 implementation grants in the finalist stage 
  • $1.5 million final implementation funding, to be shared among up to 3 winners 
  • The opportunity to engage directly with city leaders
  • Access to city stakeholders including problem-holders, end users and beneficiaries
  • Access to a network of like-minded innovators
  • Access to capacity building support in user-centred design and other related areas 
• All funding must be used to develop, test, demonstrate, and implement solutions in the City of Varanasi.

Eligibility Criteria 

• The eligibility criteria articulate who can enter the challenge and the conditions they will need to meet to be eligible. If you do not meet the criteria below your entry to the challenge will not be accepted.
  • The solution must be tailored specifically for and implemented within Varanasi’s old city of Kashi.
  • Entrants can be single organizations or consortia.
  • Teams that enter as a consortium must nominate one organization as the lead entrant. The lead entrant will enter into contracts and receive funding from the Toyota Mobility Foundation.
  • Entrants must be established as a legally incorporated organization to enter.
  • Entrants must have a presence in India (if a consortia, at least one company must have a presence in India)
  • The challenge is open to innovators worldwide, but entries must be in English.
  • Successful entrants must be willing and able to travel to the city of Varanasi as there will be expectations for on-theground presence during the next stage of the challenge.
  • Entrants must be able to work with local government.
  • Entrants must own or be licensed to use relevant intellectual property included in their entries. If your entry proposes a new idea, they expect that you will own all the resulting intellectual property, which may be registered on a local basis if you become a successful participant in the challenge. The challenge will not be able to give you specific legal advice on the protection or exploitation of intellectual property.

For more information, visit Toyota Mobility Foundation.