Share the Challenges on Food Security in Northwest Syria
Your voice matters! This is your chance to contribute to shaping impactful solutions to address food insecurity in Northwest Syria. Let’s collaborate to tackle the region’s most pressing issues and create meaningful change.
Thoughtcast No.2 in Jordan: on Duplication of Efforts in the NGOs and Innovation Space
The second event of our Thoughtcast series took place on October 27 in Jordan! During the gathering, the participants discussed the duplication of efforts and explored the challenges within the impact ecosystem.
NW Syria Lab Launched the Innovation WASH Club
We have been committed to establishing the Innovation WASH Club as a coordinated and dedicated platform. The convener participants, now collectively committed as part of the Club, will mobilize their resources and bring innovations to enhance the WASH response in NW Syria.
RILx24 Successfully Concluded in Kathmandu, Nepal!
RILx24 has successfully concluded! Hosted by World Vision Nepal and Nepal Innovation Lab, we organized the 2024 edition of the annual RILx event. This year, we gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal from September 17-19, and welcomed over 200 guests from 60 agencies coming from 25 different countries!
First “Thoughtcast” In-person Event in Jordan
Together with Majlisna - Civic Jordan, we successfully hosted our first Thoughtcast session in Jordan to discuss what NGOs need from entrepreneurs and what entrepreneurs can offer. We welcomed participants from international and local NGOs, social business, academia, and tech and innovation sectors for fruitful exchanges!
In-person Gathering in Jordan on Aug 31, 2024
Together with Majlisna - Civic Jordan, our first Thoughtcast session, "Bridging the Gap: What NGOs Need from Entrepreneurs and What Entrepreneurs Can Offer”, is happening this Saturday the 31st of August!
Share the Challenges of the WASH Sector in NW Syria
We’re preparing for our first "Challenge Mapping" exercise, and we need your help to identify the critical challenges faced in the WASH sector. Your feedback will guide our efforts and ensure they are as impactful as possible.
Join Our Community in Jordan!
This will be an opportunity for startups and innovators to connect with NGOs and leverage their skills to provide impactful solutions. We’re planning informal, topic-driven networking gatherings where meaningful conversations and collaborations can flourish.
IGNITE Food Systems Challenge Somalia Calls for Applications
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Somalia Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL) with the support of USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs (BHA) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are looking for solutions in Somalia that address food insecurity through strengthening food systems.
Launch of the Northwest Syria Response Innovation Lab (NW Syria RIL)
On May 30, 2024, in Gaziantep, Turkey, we officially launched the Northwest Syria Response Innovation Lab (NW Syria RIL). This initiative, led by World Vision International and the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), is set to transform humanitarian response in Northwest Syria, particularly in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquakes.
Project Highlight: Gulu University's Nutritional Renaissance
Nestled within the challenging terrain of the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement in Uganda, a beacon of hope is meticulously emerging through the collaboration of Gulu University, the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), and Save the Children. This unfolding narrative, generously backed by Innovation Norway under the Local Innovations for Nutrition Solutions (LINS) project, unfolds against the backdrop of two critical issues plaguing refugee-hosting communities—malnutrition and limited access to diverse, nutritious foods.
Danish Refugee Council joins Response Innovation Lab as Global Member
The global Response Innovation Lab partnership is proud to welcome Danish Refugee Council as its newest Member. DRC has joined founding partners World Vision International, Save the Children International, Oxfam International and Civic to help further RIL’s mission to transform response innovation ecosystems in humanitarian contexts. DRC’s singular focus on displacement programming and community empowerment will help drive our programme to further explore how grassroots level innovation initiatives can better connect with response-level humanitarian innovation systems so that community-led solutions can impact populations at scale.
RIL supports WFP Somalia to map food systems challenges
Response Innovation Lab and the World Food Programme have joined forces to facilitate the development and adoption of innovative solutions to key challenges in the Somali food system space. This collaboration culminated in a workshop held in Hargeisa on September 19-21 and co-facilitated by the two partners.
RILx23 Perspectives: Reflections on Humanitarian Innovation - Navigating New Frontiers, Partnerships, and Impact
Dear humanitarian innovators and innovative humanitarians,
I hope that this blog post finds many of you enjoying a well-earned vacation. Leaving your day to day surroundings has a way to elicit some fresh thinking and gain some perspective on things, no? In my case, the change of perspective is quite literal:
RILx23 Unveils Promising Outcomes and Strategic Insights
We are thrilled to share the remarkable outcomes of RILx23, the annual event organized by Response Innovation Lab (RIL), which took place in Nairobi last week. RILx23 served as a vibrant platform that brought together diverse stakeholders from the Response Innovation Lab network, alongside selected global and regional humanitarian innovation actors.
Exploring new frontiers in partnerships at RIlx23
Response Innovation Lab is preparing its most high profile event to date — RILx23. The event will take place in Nairobi on June 12-15 under the theme of New Frontiers in humanitarian innovation partnerships.
Smart Communities Coalition merges with Response Innovation Lab
We are very excited to announce that the Smart Communities Coalition and Response Innovation Lab have decided to join forces and merge. The Coalition will join our network to become RIL’s private sector convening arm.
Learning from a savings group digitisation pilot in Uganda
Financial inclusion efforts and savings groups are common interventions in humanitarian and development programming. Individually or combined they help promote savings, increase access to credit and ultimately, build self-reliance. With more commercial and mainstream financial services moving online, there are also efforts to do the same at the community level. With this in mind, Ugandan company Akaboxi developed a way to help digitise village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) and link them to banks and other finance institutions. Akaboxi hoped their innovation would not only help people save but also help them build a base from which they could access commercial financial services in the future.
Boosting interest in open source in Uganda
Starting around May 2022, RIL and Audiopedia Foundation ran three interactive events in Kampala. These events also included developing interesting case studies of open source in action and running a contribution competition. Through these events it was hoped that existing open-source users and developers would find humanitarian and development actors to partner with and that more people, regardless of their background, would feel more confident to try using open-source software.
