The Africa Online Safety Fund with financial support from Google.org has been established to finance innovative solutions to online safety challenges

NAIROBI, NAIROBI, KENYA, April 4, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- Impact Amplifier (IA) has sent out a call for applications ( https://www.impactamplifier.co.za/africa-online-safety-fund) for the award of grants under its $1,000,000 Africa Online Safety Fund (AOSF). This project is made possible with the support of Google.org.

Africa’s internet access has increased dramatically over the last 10 years with over 520 million people, or 40% of the population, now with access to the web. This has opened up many new opportunities for socio-economic development, including the potential for the internet economy to contribute nearly $180 billion to Africa's economy by 2025.

However, this rapid growth has also brought new challenges, including privacy and security concerns, bullying and harassment, hate crimes, fake news, political targeting and manipulation, terrorist recruitment and promotion, and financial scams. The COVID-19 pandemic has only made these issues worse, with a 30% increase in cyberattacks.

To address these issues, the Africa Online Safety Fund, with financial support from Google.org, has been established to finance innovative existing and new solutions to these challenges.

The Fund will be awarding grants to organisations throughout Africa, but will be focused on four primary countries, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, that address one or more of the safety issues the internet facilitates.
There are three categories of funding: Transformative, Maturing and Catalytic. The Transformative projects are intended to be larger in scale, reach multiple geographies and/ or potentially large numbers of beneficiaries, and be scalable as a solution. The Maturing projects are intended to test ideas at a larger scale, try new ideas within existing projects, and reach new audiences. The Catalytic projects are intended to be smaller, targeted, and potentially only locally or culturally specific.

Transformative projects will attract a maximum grant of $50,000, Maturing projects up to $25,000, and Catalytic projects $10,000.

Applications opened on 1 March and will be received until 30 April 2023. The shortlisted applicants will be announced by 31 May and taken through the second stage of the application process. The finalists will be known by 15 July, 2023.

This is the second call for applications for AOSF, the first one having been last year. In the first set of awards, a total of 26 organizations received grants through the programme. The successful applicants in that first cohort came from a wide range of countries – including the Ivory Coast, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Ends

Application Form: https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/wzB3yy


NOTES FOR EDITORS:
In its second call for applications, IA is seeking applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, ranging from child-rights organizations and technology firms to human-rights advocates. The common thread in all applications is that they must have an innovative programme for dealing with online safety.
As countries, businesses and individuals become more dependent on digital technology, they also become more vulnerable to cyber threats. As these threats grow in parallel with the adoption of internet and digital services it creates individual safety concerns that include terrorist recruitment, sex trafficking, identity theft, financial scams and cyber bullying. The African continent is a soft target for internet-related vulnerabilities, threats and attacks. Impact Amplifier created AOSF in order to craft a holistic approach to the problem of online safety in Africa.

ABOUT IMPACT AMPLIFIER
Founded in 2011, Impact Amplifier (IA) has its headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa, with offices in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Lagos, Nigeria. It is a social impact-focused accelerator and capital advisory business – blending research, business development services and funding to scale commercially viable social enterprises in Africa.

Addressing Africa’s socioeconomic and environmental challenges, IA creates sustained impact by:
● Providing acceleration, investment readiness, capital raising and bespoke business development services to post revenue in high impact businesses;
● Assisting impact investors to build quality business portfolios, which can thrive commercially while making a meaningful contribution to local/global social challenges;
● Supporting larger companies to enhance and measure their social and/or environmental impact; and
● Creating a range of research solutions at various scales, to support the knowledge gaps in the impact investment ecosystem.

Typically, IA conducts two to three multinational ecosystem/impact assessment research projects per year, trains up to 60 social enterprises, accelerates 30 over a longer period, and works actively across eight to 10 grant/investment deals per annum. It supports a blend of catalytic grants, debt, and equity from a variety of grantors and investors. Currently, IA is working across 23 African countries.

IA’s team is composed of highly skilled professionals whose complementary backgrounds and expertise include: Fund management, management consulting, research and technology, starting and developing multiple social innovations, deep understanding of social and environmental issues, and measuring impact. IA operates virtually and in situ; working adaptively and flexibly with ecosystem actors across the African continent, as well as in the United States and Europe.

Victor Muya
Yolanda Tavares PR
+254 728 045484
email us here
Visit us on social media:
Facebook

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.