Image source: Greater London Authority
Seven technology companies are to receive up to £50,000 each to develop projects aimed at supporting Londoners dealing with the cost of living crisis.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has announced the winners of the Poverty Prevention Challenge – part of the Challenge LDN programme – providing them with seed funding and opportunities to develop new products and services.
It is aimed at finding innovative solutions to provide people with access to opportunities and resources to reach financial independence, and to improve the way the public sector identifies and supports people at risk of falling into financial hardship.
The winners are:
- CARD-HR, which provides free legal services to residents and free management and administration services to voluntary organisations across South-East London to enable these communities to be financially inclusive, overcome health inequalities, and build resilience and prosperity.
- MatchingMind, which has a peer support platform to ensure people in ethnic minorities get support that fits.
- Mealia, an AI grocery assistant designed to help family households at risk of food insecurity maximise their food budget.
- Mendee for its SiBot (Social Impact Bot) to help non-profit organisations that support refugees in providing more efficient and fast support through AI powred tools.
- Mortar Works for its Rent Response tenancy sustainment tool, designed for tenants and landlords to implement a rent payment schedule.
- SuperFi Finance, developing a tool that helps users view and manage all their finances in one police. It includes functions for repayment strategies, bill management, debt consolidation and specialist debt advice.
- Time to Spare, which allows charities to share information with councils to provide more effective support for people they work with.
Khan commented: “Local government and community groups are working tirelessly to support residents during the cost of living crisis. But as a city we must continue to innovate and AI and new digital services have a real role to play in assisting that.
“Supporting open calls to London's tech sector means we can apply new approaches to the challenges people face.”
London’s chief digital officer, Theo Blackwell, said: “Over the past five years setting open calls – or challenges – like this has allowed us to be bolder and work more collaboratively with London’s start-ups and scale-ups. Seeking and testing new ideas and learning from others, is an important part of London’s new way of working.”
Challenge LDN was originally launched by the mayor with Barnet Council to encourage organisations to find new ways to use technology to support the Londoners who are most in need. It has so far invested more than £2.5 million in supporting them to scale up across the city.
