I-Lab Projects

A World of Solutions: Innovations for People with Disabilities

“A World of Solutions” is an initiative that has allowed participants to identify, through crowdsourcing, the most urgent problems faced by people with disabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through a Call for Solutions, now we have projects in 15 countries, ranging from a low cost wheelchair designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and built with bicycle components; to accessible videogames; to a device that allows blind users to perceive colors and images through Braille; to open source software for labor inclusion in Call Centers, and much more! Explore the projects, click here!        

 

The Virtual Institute LACCIR

The Latin American and Caribbean Collaborative ICT Research is a platform that brings together researchers from universities of Latin America and the Caribbean, coordinated by the Catholic University of Chile. Those teams that pass a highly competitive selection then receive grants to work together to implement their research projects. In 2010, the Virtual Institute brought together 103 researchers, from 30 institutions from 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Explore the research projects, click here!  

 

Mobile Citizen

Mobile Citizen is an initiative that leverages mobile technology to accelerate the development and implementation of mobile services to tackle the acute social and economic problems of our region. The program focuses on the following six areas: health, education, government, commerce, social protection, and employment; special attention is given to gender and diversity issues. Explore the innovations! Click here!

LAUNCHING SOON:

Forum for Small Start-ups in LAC

Starting a new business is a daunting prospect, especially if you aren’t even sure what steps you need to take to get your business started.  The Innovation Lab will offer a chance for entrepreneurs interested in starting up a new business to ask practical questions about the procedures or challenges in setting up their individual businesses.  As with the other I-lab projects, problems will be filtered through a darwinesque contest and the Innovation Lab will generate solutions for the problems being faced by the next generation of LAC start-ups.        

The Innovation Lab for Haiti

The Innovation Lab for Haiti is to become a platform that can develop solutions for companies and organizations that are working and investing in Haiti. It will engage and strengthen Haitian Universities that play a crucial role in the development of solutions and in training students so that they have the skills required by the local market. The first phase of The Innovation Lab for Haiti will be focused on the deployment of technology for the inclusion of people with disabilities and will be executed in partnership with the University of Quisqueya, the State University and with innovators from world class universities, research centers, NGOs, and private firms. The second phase will focus on boosting the competitiveness and productivity of Haitian small and medium enterprises through better-trained human resources and innovative products and processes.    

Entrepreneurial Diaspora

Latin America and the Caribbean are characterized by one of the highest emigration rates of the world. Highly skilled people from LAC leave their countries of origin to explore better education and business opportunities in Europe or North America. Latin America and the Caribbean are facing the challenge of becoming dynamic and knowledge-based economies where competitive firms can prosper. This project, launching soon, aims to develop solutions by answering the following questions:

  • What can we do to support entrepreneurship?
  • How can we empower the best and brightest migrants no matter where they live?
  • How can we engage highly-skilled migrants to make LAC one of the most competitive regions of the world?
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