How can we make giving and receiving care accessible, affordable, and valued for all?

Challenge Overview

Care work is ubiquitous and essential. Paid and unpaid carers support over one billion people, including children under 6, elderly adults, and people with disabilities. High-quality care encourages early childhood development, enables a higher quality of life, and provides meaningful work. Yet today, most care work globally is unpaid or undervalued, and disproportionately falls on women and girls. The Covid-19 pandemic has made this gender disparity worse, pushing millions of women out of the workforce as the default caregivers for children or sick family members. Simultaneously, paid care workers face a lack of support, limited benefits, and little control over workplace conditions.

The care economy looks very different around the world. Where formal care is more available, the high cost can limit access, and yet, care workers are often still underpaid. In many areas, childcare is often informal or unavailable, limiting options for women to pursue other jobs. Elsewhere, care work often falls on domestic workers, many of them migrants, who have few legal rights and can be exploited. Technology and innovation can help to make the care economy in all contexts more transparent, safe, and accessible through new models of care, new ways to support workers, and shifts in gender stereotypes.

The MIT Solve community is looking for eight technology-based solutions that help care workers pursue safe and secure work, and make care for young children, the elderly, and people with disabilities accessible and affordable in all contexts. To that end, Solve seeks solutions that:

• Improve access to training and certifications, portable benefits, and labor organizations for care workers.

• Ensure decent working conditions and basic rights for care workers, particularly migrant or domestic workers whose labor may be exploited. 

• Enable new models for childcare or eldercare that improve affordability, convenience, and community trust. 

• Establish care work as a broadly respected profession, including reducing stereotypes around gender roles. 

Special Call: Black & Brown Innovators program
Black and Latinx people, particularly women, account for the majority of the US care workforce facing inequalities in the system. Communities of color in the US also often have less access to affordable formal care for their own loved ones. As part of Solve’s ongoing work on US racial equity, we will select 1-2 solutions from the US working to address these disparities for our Black & Brown Innovators Program.

Photo credit: OneSky

Prizes

MIT Solve - Solver Award 

All Solver teams selected for Solve’s Global Challenges and the Indigenous Communities Fellowship will receive a $10,000 grant funded by Solve.

The GSR Prize

GSR will award a prize to solutions that use innovative technology and, in particular, blockchain solutions to address pressing issues in their communities and the world. As a leading cryptocurrency trading firm, GSR seeks to advance education, promote equality of opportunity, and contribute to a sustainable world, emphasizing blockchain and innovative technology-powered solutions. Up to $200,000 will be awarded across Solver teams from the 2022 Global Challenges.

The Living Proof Prize: Women's Leadership Solutions

The Living Proof Prize is open to women-led teams that are using innovative approaches to solve challenges across economic prosperity, health, learning, and sustainability. The prize is funded by Living Proof, a haircare company at the crossroads of innovation and real-world results that is committed to social impact. Up to $100,000 will be granted across up to four Solver teams from the 2022 Global Challenges.

The Innovation for Women Prize

The Innovation for Women Prize is open to solutions that use innovative technology to empower and enrich the lives of women and girls. The prize will be awarded to women-led, tech-powered solutions that aim to elevate women's voices and support positive and sustainable change in communities around the world. Up to $75,000 will be awarded across up to three Solver teams from the 2022 Global Challenges.

The Andan Prize

The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion is open to solutions that advance the economic, financial, and political inclusion of refugees. The prize is funded by Andan Foundation, a Swiss non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting solutions that promote refugee resilience, self-reliance and integration. Up to $100,000 will be granted across up to four Solver teams from the 2022 Global Challenges.

AI for Humanity Prize

The AI for Humanity Prize is open to solutions leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and/or machine learning to benefit humanity, as well as to those planning to utilize these technologies to amplify their impact. The prize is made possible by The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a philanthropy committed to advancing AI and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. Up to $150,000 in funding will be awarded across several Solver teams from any of Solve’s 2022 Global Challenges.

Heifer International Prize for Innovation for Smallholder Agriculture

The Heifer International Prize is open to solutions that support smallholder farmers to grow and scale their businesses and protect them from the adverse effects of climate change. The prize is funded by Heifer International, an international development organization on a mission to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way by supporting and investing alongside local farmers and their communities. Up to $250,000 will be granted across several Solver teams from any 2022 Global Challenge or any earlier Solve Global Challenge.

The Elevate Prize

The Elevate Prize will be awarded to one non-profit Solver team from any 2022 Global Challenge or any earlier Solve Global Challenge. This prize is supported by The Elevate Prize Foundation, which has a mission of amplifying the work of impact leaders for social good and driving change together. The Solver team that is selected will participate in both the MIT Solver program and the Elevate Prize program, receiving a minimum of $300,000 over two years and ongoing support from The Elevate Prize Foundation and MIT Solve.

The Health Access Prize

The Health Access Prize is open to entrepreneurs who are developing boundary-pushing solutions addressing health workforce and healthcare challenges in low-income and diverse communities. This prize is supported and funded by Johnson & Johnson Impact Ventures, a fund within the Johnson & Johnson Foundation. Up to $175,000 will be granted across up to five Solver teams from the Equitable Health Systems and Care Economy Challenges.