ELDERAID

India

Dignity and care for elders in their golden years

Elderaid serves as a one-stop centre providing at-home health, wellness and concierge services to elders to enable them to live their golden years with independence, dignity and security.

The DBSF Grant will support geographical expansion within India and provide training to more caregivers.

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Ento Industries

Singapore

Transform organic waste to animal feedstock

Ento Industries converts organic waste into high value and quality animal feedstock for the agriculture industry, effectively closing the loop on food waste.

The DBSF Grant will support the technology adoption and commercialisation of a food waste conversion system.

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GreenPrice

Hong Kong

Reduce waste by saving short-dated food products

Green Price mitigates food waste through reselling food products that are still good but due for clearance or near expiry date in its retail chain of stores.

The DBSF Grant will support the automation and digitalisation of supply chain and expansion of retail stores.

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HelperChoice

Hong Kong

Fair online platform connecting domestic workers & employers

Understanding that migrant domestic workers are often vulnerable to exploitation, HelperChoice is the first ethical platform connecting domestic workers to employers through technology, eradicating the culture of placement fees and ensuring safe and fair working conditions.

The DBSF Grant will support the platform in market expansion to Singapore.

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Komerce

Indonesia

Upskill village youth for a digital business world

Komerce empowers youths in villages by training them in digital literacy and e-commerce, and providing employment opportunities with SMEs.

The DBSF Grant will support the expansion to scale up to other villages in Indonesia and train more youths as marketers.

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Kita Hebat

Indonesia

Transform waste to eco-friendly products

Kita Hebat empowers the disadvantaged in Medan city by converting waste into eco-friendly disinfectants, detoxicants, household cleansers and fertilizers.

The DBSF Grant will support the development of new products and support inclusive employment of marginalised groups.

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Link Accessibility

China

Make information accessible, usable and comprehensible

Link Accessibility empowers users with disabilities to access information on digital platforms by improving their accessibility, usability, and comprehensibility.

The DBSF Grant will support the development and implementation of barrier-free IoT devices for elder care and disability assistance.

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PureMilk

Taiwan

Future of the dairy industry

PureMilk has a vision to transform Taiwan's dairy industry using intelligent technology to produce high-quality dairy products and increase animal welfare knowledge through training school.

The DBSF Grant will support the establishment of technology-enabled Future Farms and expand the training academy for dairy farmers.

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Sense Innovation

Taiwan

Eye-tracking technology to overcome severe disabilities

Sense Innovation helps the severely disabled, assisting them in improving their cognitive ability, autonomous communication and professional skills using a user-friendly eye-tracking software.

The DBSF Grant will support the development and roll out of the Sense AEye Learning and Rehabilitation Platform for persons with disabilities.

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Voibook

China

Ease communication for the hearing impaired

Voibook leverages AI to build a real-time barrier-free communication platform for persons with hearing loss to go about daily activities.

The DBS Foundation grant will support app improvements and the deployment of the Voibook Learning System to more special education schools in China.

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ZigWay

Singapore

Affordable household essentials for the last mile

Zigway helps low income households in ASEAN access household essentials through a bulk purchase subscription model by leveraging a mobile application and training women to be “Super-Users”.

The DBSF Grant will support the upgrading of the mobile app platform, training of more women and geographical expansion.

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Boaz International Education Institute

Hong Kong

For Children with SEN to Learn Better

"If children do not learn the way we teach, we teach the way they learn."

Boaz International Education Institute was established with this principle by their founder who overcame her learning difficulty of Dyslexia. The social enterprise aims to provide support for children with special education needs (SEN) to help themselves.

The curriculum developed explores the inherent potential of every child, identifies his/her strengths to become independent learners and assimilate into the society.

The DBS Foundation grant will support the international accreditation of their trainer programme thereby encouraging more passionate educators in this field and supporting students from marginalised groups.

Cha Tzu Tang

Taiwan

Belief. Art. Land. Tradition. People

With declining markets, emergence of chemical products, and loss of heritage in camellia cultural assets, many old farmers and scattered camellia farms in Taiwan face survival challenges. Cha Tzu Tang is a social enterprise that produces body care products and edible oil from camellia trees and is dedicated to rediscovery of camellia oil in Taiwan.

Cha Tzu Tang manages local camellia farms through contract farming and planned planting of camellia trees in rural areas. The social enterprise believes that through the integration of nature, human values and art from Taiwan, they can further re-establish a new identity for camellia oil to stand on the world stage.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to support the branding and marketing efforts of Cha Tzu Tang’s international expansion as well as enhancing their operational efficiency and product development.

MotionECO

China

Sustainable Fuel from Waste

MotionECO works with food catering companies to reduce restaurant food wastage at the source and ensure oil waste is collected legally and effectively to upcycle into environmentally friendly biofuels.

The social enterprise’s solution can trace the collection and transformation of the recycled cooking oil into green fuel through the entire process, thereby reducing traffic emissions, increasing food safety and improving the environment resulting in a win-win situation for all.

The DBS Foundation grant will support MotionECO’s expansion to scale up waste oil collection across cities in China and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

NamZ

Singapore

Redesigning Comfort Food

NamZ has created a high-protein, lower-fat noodle product by incorporating underutilised, climate-resilient crops, and utilising a patent-pending technology which does not involve deep-frying. NamZ’s proprietary manufacturing process ensures that the product retains taste and stays affordable compared to other instant noodle brands.

By reducing fat content by 300% relative to existing instant noodle products and replacing this with nutrient-rich Future Fit Crops, this food science company supports small holder farmers through cultivation on degraded land and reducing the over-reliance on commodity crops such as palm plantations in South East Asia.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to upgrade and scale up production capacity of the noodle pilot line making the healthier product accessible to a larger population.

S4S Technologies

India

Tech that Reduces Food Waste and Empowers Farmers

S4S Technologies is the food tech company serving the global dehydrated food market with its patented UN award winning solar dehydration technology.

The social enterprise works with women farmers turning them into entrepreneurs enabling them with the technology to produce dehydrated vegetables at the farm gate. S4S aggregates these farm produces, performs necessary quality checks, undertakes secondary processing at its ISO grade factory making the products available to a wide range of B2B and B2C consumers. S4S farmers earn enhanced incomes by reducing farm level losses and creating value added products that are both unique and nutritive.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to conduct a self-financing pilot with a farmer group in a new geography of India which can be later replicated several times, scaling up impact.

Tanijoy

Indonesia

Happiness through Agriculture

Tanijoy aims to build a better agriculture ecosystem by empowering local smallholder farmers through end-to-end agriculture solutions.

The social enterprise understands that smallholder farmers need an integrated ecosystem. Hence Tanijoy integrates relevant stakeholders to create a farmer friendly platform for receiving loans through peer-to-peer lending. The social enterprise also helps farmers in recording financial and agricultural data through their field support managers and platforms.

The DBS Foundation grant will help Tanijoy develop a digital ecosystem that will enhance capacity and traceability of farming and transaction activities. The data collected will help smallholder farmers with actionable insights.

UWin Nanotech

Taiwan

Green Chemistry for Waste Reduction

UWin Nanotech focuses on green chemistry and has developed an environment friendly precious metal hydrometallurgy process. This technology is cyanide-free, can dissolve precious metals with ease and has wide ranging applications in mining, semiconductors, printed circuit boards and connectors and management of e-waste. This non-toxic process helps in reducing wastewater, eliminating potential health hazards and impacting environment positively.

The DBS Foundation grant will support scaling up UWin’s technology implementation in the e-waste business segment.

Evoware

Indonesia

Solving the ocean plastic problem with seaweed

With over 150 million tons of plastic waste contaminating the ocean, the problem of plastic pollution is real and needs urgent attention.

Evoware’s seaweed-based bio-packaging to replace small-format plastic packaging for food and non-food products is a timely and relevant social innovation. The packaging is bio-degradable, edible and rich in fiber that's safe and good for human being, animal and the earth. Working directly with seaweed farmers, Evoware is helping improve the farmers’ livelihood while also providing an eco friendly alternative to plastic.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards helping Evoware increase their production capability.

GandengTangan.org

Indonesia

Connecting micro businesses with interested investors

GandengTangan,org connects micro-business owners who need financing, with investors who want to create social impact. GandengTangan.org presents a secure and transparent funding platform such that both parties can join hands to create a financially inclusive Indonesia.

GandengTangan.org uses an online platform to match micro-business owners with accessible loans at much lower interest rates which is made possible by the collective power of crowdsourced investors.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards product enhancement to add machine learning and data science for accurate credit scoring as well as for hiring skilled manpower.

Haqdarshak

India

Removing the barriers to assistance

There are over a 5,000 support schemes floated by the Indian Government to address the challenges faced by the disadvantaged citizens. However, these development funds remain unutilised due to the massive information gap, inaccurate application process and unawareness of eligibility among the rural poor.

Haqdarshak has found a solution by offering supplementary service to the government’s efforts. They reach intended beneficiaries by identifying, training and placing village level entrepreneurs (haqdarshaks) to help with the application process. The social enterprise offers the last-mile support to citizens for applying to schemes as well as use artificial-intelligence to map eligibility.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards building an open source API platform as well as training more haqdarshaks.

Hidekawa 禾乃川股份有限公司

Taiwan

Empowering marginalised communities

Hidekawa preserves the craftsmanship spirit and beautiful memories of an old township. Putting arts, creativity and design into the community development of Sanxia, Hidekawa trains local craftsmen and farmers, and shares stories of artists via its beautiful products and tours.

Through their store in Sanxia, lives of school dropouts, unemployed parents and small farmers are changed, and high-quality soy-based products are produced. These people are trained, employed, given access to market for their products and thereby earn stable incomes.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to increase production line capacity of Hidekawa’s soy-based products.

PHOOL

India

Returning waste to the cycle of life through Flowercycling©

16% of pollutants in the Ganges river comes from flower waste originating from places of worship. Kanpur Flowercycling with their brand PHOOL is revolutionising the way India handles the million-ton flower waste disposal.

The social enterprise collects flower waste from temples which is then hand-processed by women self-help groups to produce charcoal-free incense, bio-fertiliser, natural soap and so on. The women working in the production facility, who were once manual scavengers are given dignity and a better future.

The biodegradable Florafoam ® which can be used as a packaging alternative is yet another innovation from Kanpur Flowercycling and is 27% cheaper than its non-biodegradable petroleum counterparts.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to set up the production facility of Florafoam ®, obtain necessary certifications and scale up operations to other cities.

Rooftop Republic

Hong Kong

Turning grey concrete green

In Hong Kong, with over 98% of the food being imported and everyone living in urban areas, citizens are increasingly disconnected from their food.

Rooftop Republic, a pioneer of the urban farming movement in Hong Kong, has a vision to revolutionise the food system and transform the relationship people have with their food.

This social enterprise collaborates with architects, engineers, organic farmers, chefs and nutritionists to develop and deliver urban farming solutions. Offering innovative end-to-end services - from design, installation to maintenance and community engagement, Rooftop Republic incorporates urban farms into city-dwellers’ lifestyles, making the city more sustainable and liveable.

The DBS Foundation Grant will be used for setting up an urban farming academy, develop training programmes and promote awareness for integrating farming into city living in Hong Kong.

iSEE

Hong Kong

Technology to assist the blind

One in seven, in Hong Kong, suffer with a disability.

iSEE has developed a mobile application specially designed for the blind community. Through the app, persons with visual impairment can connect with society to lead normal lives. The app helps them recognise forms, colours, objects, read numbers on important documents and much more.

iSEE is working towards breaking social barriers through technology as the app facilitates the blind to become independent, explore career opportunities and facilitates equal social participation.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards supporting the vocational training of persons with disabilities, programme development and user experience consultation to enhance the product service offering.

SukkhaCitta

Indonesia

Taking rural artisans to the global stage

SukkhaCitta is bringing in inclusive economic change by building a new generation of artisans who can thrive on the global market and feel pride from their work.

The social enterprise understands that the craft sector in the country holds immense potential for social and economic development. SukkhaCitta champions home based artisans in rural Indonesia by providing them with market-relevant knowledge through training and certification as well as access to international markets, thereby removing exploitative practices while pioneering sustainability in the industry.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used for training more local artisans, certification of local villages and to scale up production capacity.

Treedots

Singapore

Turning potential food waste into opportunity

With 809,800 tonnes of food wastage in Singapore in 2017 and amount almost doubling in a decade, food wastage problem needs serious intervention.

The social enterprise aims to reduce food wastage by creating a platform to link businesses with unsold inventory to potential buyers to not let perfectly edible food, end up in the bin. TreeDots’ platform aggregates food producers, importers, distributors, and F&B businesses to facilitate the selling of unsold food items. Leveraging on machine learning and integrated systems, they enhance the efficiency of food distribution.

The DBS Grant will be used for enhancement of their online platform.

Yonah

Singapore

Reaching critical medical supplies to inaccessible communities

Yonah is dedicated to tackling the challenges in transporting critical medicines and vaccines in rural and inaccessible areas.

Yonah is currently developing turn-key cargo drones infrastructure with smaller ground footprint requirements, affordability (less than SGD50 per flight/hour); Yonah is seeking to transform healthcare in remote areas. They are empowering communities with autonomous technologies that will overcome access barriers in some of the most under-developed regions.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used for the development and pilot testing of a vehicle.

BubbleNut Wash

India

Detergents from nature

Social innovation from HarvestWild Organic Solutions has helped convert a neglected agricultural produce into a value-added product. During the lean agriculture season, they encourage farmers in remote areas to collect soap nuts from surrounding forest areas and convert the nuts into liquid laundry and dish washing detergents. Farmers’ income is supplemented and eco-friendly organic detergents are made available in the market. BubbleNut Wash from this social enterprise provides a natural alternative that can replace chemical-intensive products from consumers’ lifestyle. The grant will be used for setting up a solvent extraction unit thereby improving product offering and production capacity as well as for expansion of company team.

CaptionCube

Singapore

Bridging society through Communication

CaptionCube hires PwDs as transcribers for video captioning services provided by the clients, media companies or e-learning providers. They create opportunities for inclusive employment, upgrade capabilities of PwDs and empower them with income, sense of belonging and self-worth. From 20 video hours per month they envisage a growth of 200 video hours per month and growing their impact to engage 12 PwDs in 2018. The grant will be used to accelerate tech development to improve UX and capacity of their platform.

Du’Anyam Weaving Goods

Indonesia

Production and distribution of wicker products made by rural women.

Women in rural Indonesia have wicker weaving skills as a part of their tradition but lack design direction and market access. Du’anyam has been able to bridge these gaps for the women artisans while also providing them with year-round financial access to health services and improved nutrition. DuAnyam.com – online wholesale craft platform has been created with a vision to become the first and largest online wholesale crafts with a social cause. Currently Du’anyam has empowered 400 women and by 2020 they hope to impact 2000 women artisans. The grant will be used to expand and streamline their production and increase sales via online wholesale platform.

Eco-Greenergy

Hong Kong

With us, going green is easy

Eco-Greenergy is a social enterprise embracing simple, practical and sustainable solutions such as food waste recycling machines to education programs. Eco-Greenergy’s Zero Grounds Coffee Campaign upcycles used coffee grounds from cafes and commercial offices into compostable products such as soap, fertilizer and flower pots. 5% of the campaign profit is donated to food waste related research teams in Hong Kong as a support to the long-term industry development. The grant will be used to set up of a production and activity facility in Hong Kong and to develop new products such as compostable cutlery from coffee grounds.

Edible Garden City

Singapore

Enabling Citizen farms - the Future of Urban Farming

Edible Garden City champions the ‘grow-your-own-food’ movement and reduces food waste by incorporating natural systems with technology such as hydroponics, aquaponics and insect farming. This social enterprise builds and maintains edible gardens for hotels, schools, restaurants, commercial buildings and private clients. Their goal is to help cities become more self-sufficient by growing food in underutilised spaces like rooftops, under viaducts, and everywhere in between. The grant will be used for the development and scaling up of microgreens and mushroom production, and for the development of closed-loop agriculture systems.

Fantastic Dream

Hong Kong

Making a real connection – Online to Offline

Fantastic Dream connects with popular Youtubers and KOLs in Hong Kong with organisations to tailor make recruitment programmes with positive influence to inspire youth. The social enterprise educates teenagers on career opportunities and helps provide internships and job posts. In addition, their career education content and youth internship programmes via Youtube have been encouraging on viewership. The grant will be used to develop new content and youth engagement initiatives.

Justwin

Taiwan

Partnering with nature

In partnership with nature, Justwin makes agriculture healthier, safer and more productive. Through eco-friendly pest control services, they help farmers improve their production while also providing safer conditions for bees to produce honey. With exclusive greenhouse bee rearing technologies, they work towards increasing healthy bee population and in turn supporting farmers break into the virtuous cycle of sustainable farming. The grant will be used to increase production capacity, build awareness on importance of bees to environment and food security.

Kheyti

India

Technology Solutions for Small farmers

Kheyti helps smallholder farmers increase their yield and predictability of produce. Their social innovation - the “Greenhouse-in-a-Box” (GIB), is a low-cost, modular greenhouse bundled with end-to-end services. Specially designed, the greenhouse fits in very small areas, protects crops from environmental risks and helps farmers grow 7 times more food using 90% less water. Apart from providing technology, Kheyti works with partners to extend farmer financing, input linkages, ongoing production advice as well as market linkages, creating a seamless path towards assured supplemental incomes of $100/month. The grant will be used to drive the product to full scale commercial launch.

Knight Digital Technology

Taiwan

Warm service from Cloud Matching

A transport company in Taiwan found that 59% of its capacity was being lost when delivery trucks returned empty from destinations. They found that they could bridge the problem by optimising travel routes to collect and deliver donated goods to needy families on the return legs. This is efficiently accomplished by matching needs of families with available goods through their online platform. With 30 trucks they have donated about 1883 items and assisting 360 families every year. The grant will be used for enhancing cloud based intelligent container warehousing and expanding the business operations network to increase employment opportunities and impact.

Pandawa Agri Indonesia

Indonesia

Better Agriculture, better Life

Pandawa Agri Indonesia (PAI) offers various research-based products & services to support sustainable agricultural practice in Indonesia. Focused on reducing synthetic input by 50%, they have developed eco-friendly and innovative products such as Weed Solution and Pest Solution which offer 30% cost savings to farmers. Their fungicide product is also getting ready for launch. Team PAI work alongside farmers educating them on the negative effects of high pesticide application. The social enterprise also trains young people as “Agriculture Ambassadors” to inculcate appreciation in youngsters for this area. The grant will be used to set up a new production facility increasing their capacity to meet market demand.

Tomoroe

China

Guiding youth to achieve dream careers

Tomoroe’s online platform connects students in remote areas of China with outstanding professionals from all walks of life. These connections, career stories and inspirations help youth make informed decisions on their careers. The social enterprises places effort in selecting and recruiting volunteers who share their career stories through video, voice, text through WeChat and other media platforms for widespread dissemination. Tomoroe is working towards being that vital bridge between secondary students in China and the professional world. The grant will be used to strengthen the online platform, recruit quality guest speakers and reach out to at least 2,500 rural secondary students.

Ugly Good

Singapore

Environmental sustainability by tackling food wastage

UglyGood aims to reduce organic by-product wastage generated within the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry through upcycling and building innovative business models around wastage. They are currently testing the concept by focusing on the juice industry, upcycling fruit juice pulp and peel wastage into animal feed and other products. Utilising biochemical technology to process by-product wastage, they turn them into valuable products such as organic eco-friendly detergents or essential oils currently used in beauty and skin care products. The grant will be used for accelerating their product research and stepping up marketing.

Givo

Hong Kong

Let's make giving social, today

Givo makes 'giving' a virtuous cycle by allowing users create customised newsfeeds for causes and topics they care about. This mobile app connects with social media so friends and followers of donors can be inspired too. Charities on the other hand can improve their transparency and make use of the simple to use, informative platform to engage better with their donors. The DBS Foundation grant will be used to recruit marketing staff, organise campaigns and events to publicise Givo and raise funds for doing good.

Givola

Singapore

Crowdfunding for social good

A suite of products and services that support social impact organisations to increase donations and reduce fund raising costs while improving their communication with their constituents and improving operational efficiency. On its mission to democratise giving, GIVE.asia also offers white label platforms for charities and companies; simplifies & optimises mobile conversions, as well as leverages data to drive more engagement. The DBS Foundation grant will be used to expand its services in Hong Kong and further develop its while labelled service offering.

Greensole Footwear

India

Every foot covered and protected

GreenSole is manufacturing low cost footwear that is made from discarded shoes, saving on carbon emissions by recycling while providing employment opportunities to marginalised communities in India. The refurbished shoes are of good quality and used by the rural poor saving them from diseases due to unprotected feet. Greensole has two industrial design patents for converting used shoes into comfortable slippers. The DBS Foundation’s grant will be used for strengthening collection drives of used shoes, conduct workshops for local manufacturing and employing people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Homage Co

Singapore

Giving social work a social edge

A peer to peer marketplace that uses mobile technology to efficiently manage the relationships between paid care-workers to primary caregivers and their loved seniors. The platform uses proprietary matching engine to pair seniors with best healthcare professionals. This solution helps seniors age with dignity, unburdens family caregivers, turns compassionate people with care-giving experience into micro-entrepreneurs, providing them with an opportunity to earn. The DBS Foundation’s grant will be used for strengthening their hardware, software of the mobile platform while also getting the basic infrastructure and marketing team in place.

LongGood 龍骨王有限公司

Taiwan

Bringing joy into healing and rehabilitation

Using motion-sensing technology, cloud capabilities and gamification design, LongGood has made the Papamama System : Tele - rehabilitation of patients discharged from hospitals, possible. There is no rushing back and forth the hospital, as the VR-enhanced training/evaluation of the patient provides the therapist with required data to systematically analyse and manage patient cases. Through game design, patient rehabilitation is enhanced while providing them the will and motivation to continue therapy. Patients who recover help other patients with the system. The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards supplementing manufacturing and marketing the product in Taiwan. The grant will support the social enterprise’s expansion plan by subsidising the product for needy elderly, when launched in Singapore.

Pionovasion

China

Bringing solar light to rural & disaster hit areas

Through development of affordable and convenient smart solar devices such as solar stations, solar chargers and solar stoves, the young scientists at Pionovasion are trying to solve power problems in rural areas. Their products which provide clean energy are further aimed at providing relief to disaster hit, under developed, hard-to- access areas where inaccessibility to power is a reality. The DBS Foundation grant will help towards providing, testing and enhancing the solar stations at rural schools in China.

PT Miko Bahtera Nusantara [Mycotech]

Indonesia

Innovating sustainable construction solutions with Agri waste

Trying to channelize the 120 million tonnes of agricultural waste that is produced in Indonesia, Mycotech is using mushroom technology as a natural adhesive to pull organic fibers together and produce ecofriendly, sturdy, light weight products. This product can be customised into elegant looking panels and tiles for furniture, cabinetry and other interiors. The DBS Foundation grant will be used for getting their pilot plant facility in place as well as obtain the necessary certifications for next stage of business.

Soon Huat Bak Kut Teh

Singapore

Giving ex-offenders a new start

A firm believer in second chances, Soon Huat Bak Kut Teh has trained over 100 ex-offenders and turned them into effective employees in their various roles as main chefs, cooks, service staff, supervisors and cashiers. 60% of their staff in all their 4 outlets are ex-offenders. The beneficiaries are also provided free housing, training courses, medical cover while working with the eateries. The DBS Foundation grant will be used to subsidise manpower costs at their newly opened full-fledged dining house as well as strengthen the support system for the beneficiaries.

WateROAM

Singapore

Quenching thirst in rural South East Asian communities

WateROAM designs water filtration systems that provide clean water within seconds. The new ROAMfilter Plus from WateROAM is engineered to filter water of harsh conditions in rural regions and disaster relief zones. Designed with simplicity and requiring no electricity to run, ROAMfilter Plus excels at delivering clean water to large communities quickly and efficiently. The DBS Foundation grant will be used for full-scale manufacturing as well as develop distribution networks into Cambodia and Philippines.

Zaya Learning Labs

India

Bringing world class personalised learning to offline, underserved communities

With an end-to-end, affordable Blended Learning model, Zaya’s technology and pedagogy model can be used by schools who have low-skilled teachers and with no or limited internet through the ClassCloud that stores and deploys content in a personalised manner. Zaya currently provides technology-enabled product for Grades 1-5 for Math, English and Science along with comprehensive professional development for teachers and school leaders. To date 50,000 children have learnt on the Zaya platform with over 5 million lessons. DBS Foundation’s grant will help drive Zaya’s expansion by strengthening their mobile product offering as well as building a business development and regional sales team.

Beijing Bao Yi Technology Development Co., Ltd.

China

Founded by the philosophy of creating a moral society with the help of technology, Beijing Bao Yi Technology Development Company has over 50% blind staff members who are responsible for the company's after-sales services. Dedicated to solving disabled people's study and living difficulties by means of technology, the company has developed the software which can transform ordinary smart phones into voice based mobile phones suitable for use by the blind. When installed on any Android device, it will allow children listen to their favorite stories or content. Simple gestures will help the children open and listen to books they would have otherwise have to learn Braille and have the books served to them in Braille as well. The software design philosophy is simple, accessible and abundant. The catalogue hierarchy will suggest reading content based on the child's reading preferences and patterns including primary school textbooks, story books etc. With this project called “World in Eyes”, over ten thousand hours of audio books, thousands of children's books and other content supplements will be made available for the visually impaired children. The DBS Foundation's grant will help further develop and strengthen this reading software which is exclusively designed for visually impaired children.

Bettr Barista

Singapore

The core of Bettr Barista's operations is centred on a specially developed Holistic Training Programme - customised to reach out to disadvantaged women and youth in Singapore. The Programme goes far beyond work skills, adopting a whole-person approach that combines professional coffee education with life and emotional management skills as well as physical training. From offering paid attachments and permanent career opportunities with industry partners, to mentorship roles in their active alumni community, Bettr Barista helps these marginalised groups rise above difficult life situations, take responsibility for their own futures and ultimately become better versions of themselves. Bettr Barista works round the year with social service organisations, family service centres and other community groups to identify potential programme participants. To date, Bettr Barista has made a positive impact on the lives of over 160 women and hopes to touch at least 600 more women in the next 5 years, seeking to build their self-esteem and resilience while providing international-standard professional coffee education to further their careers. Bettr Barista's business model centers on providing professional coffee education and internationally-recognised certification for industry professionals and creating coffee-themed experiences for corporate clients and events. They have plans to initiate a micro franchise coffee cart model which is yet to be piloted.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used for strengthening their headcount, business development as well as enhancing marketing capabilities.

BlueRen

Singapore

Currently, in Singapore only 9% of nearly 870,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated is being recycled. The remaining 91% is either disposed in landfills or sent to incinerators causing carbon dioxide pollution thereby significantly contributing to climate change. BlueRen - a clean technology company is addressing the social challenges of waste management with a novel (patent pending) technology to convert unsorted plastic waste into high performance nano-carbon additives. These additives add value in terms of strength and have immense potential in the concrete manufacturing industry. The use of this additive can decrease cement usage upto 30%, thereby reducing the need for its import into Singapore. By capturing low value waste plastics and turning them into high value additives suitable for enhancing concrete strength, BlueRen seeks to deliver an eco-friendly product through a sustainable process. Through this technology, BlueRen also provides a cost effective alternative to waste collectors for disposing plastic waste.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards making the prototype and optimizing the conversion process. BlueRen will also engage with customers, obtain feedback and gather interest for its eco-friendly concrete.

Bodhi Health Education

India

With a mission of ‘providing quality medical education', Bodhi Health Education is significantly improving the understanding and awareness among health professionals and community health workers through technology tools. Using well developed education modules, Bodhi helps deliver complex medical topics to semi-literate women in an interactive and engaging way using pictorial content and videos in regional languages. Bodhi represents relevant social innovation as it's a first in providing engaging pictorial content through low cost technology, penetrating rural India where this health awareness is needed most. More importantly the social enterprise delivers offline access in remote areas as well as reduces dependency on trainers. It also helps make health education fun by offering gamification based solutions.

The grant amount will be used to upgrade the technology platform, build the Maternal and Child Health Training Curriculum, as well as build marketing and field intervention efforts such as training 3,000 community health workers in the northern and north eastern states of India in a year.

Buy Directly From Farmers

Taiwan

With onset of unhealthy lifestyles in urban areas, commercial large scale agriculture taking over clean natural farming in Taiwan, an urgent need arose to bring health back to food consumption and connect city to countryside. To address this 12 volunteers in Taiwan started “Buy Directly From Farmers” (BDFF) and registered it as a company-based social enterprise in 2014.

BDFF is dedicated to empowering small farmers in Taiwan and also works to make people understand how their lifestyle and eating habits impact the environment and the way food is grown. They help connect farmers to urban customers through information such as sharing farmers' locations and life stories through social media and selling eco-friendly, fresh quality produce through their ecommerce platform. Currently BDFF works with over 60 farmers and has a wide community of 107,000 customers, collectively creating a positive change in the world.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used to upgrade their current ecommerce platform making it compatible for use on all devices including tablets and smart phones. The grant will also be partly used for building the agriculture community network.

Sampurn(E)Arth Environmental Solutions

India

With an ever increasing strain on natural resources, ‘mishandling of waste' has emerged as one of the most pressing problems of today. Urban India generates more than 150,000 tonnes of waste daily while the Mumbai city alone generates 10,000 tonnes of waste. Sampurn(e)arth works towards building a socially, ecologically sustainable as well as financially viable zero waste models where waste management and recycling is tackled at the source and mostly in a decentralized fashion. Over three years, the social enterprise has refined its business and operations model, increased its capacity while also elevating the dignity and working conditions of waste collectors in Mumbai. In the next 3 years the enterprise hopes to increase their waste handling capacity as well as employ many more informal waste collectors. Their contribution rings in relevance and significance of social problems due to massive urbanization in developing countries like India.

DBS Foundation grant will be used towards expansion of services serving as working capital as well as helping scale the enterprise by investing in human resource & organisation building.

Shanghai Better Education Development Center

China

While China grows rapidly, both schools and families are not able to offer children relevant educational resources due to the restriction of policies, experience and time. Besides issues associated with latch key children in big cities can present pertinent urban problems. Hence community education that provides flexibility in terms of educational content offering practical learning supplements to school and family education is an answer. Shanghai Better Education Development Center has addressed this social challenge by establishing various experiential learning centres in three cities of China and offering after school reading and homework tutorship for children aged 2 to 12. The social enterprise developed a cartoon character, Aflatoun and has since devised educational content based on this character. The content is shared via interesting lessons and at their centres which are located closer to communities with migrant workers or low-income families. Each centre is financially sustainable, as programmes offered and fees charged are tiered to match the affordability of the community they serves. Shanghai Better Education seeks to improve the accessibility to quality of life skills and academic education for these children through these centres and their unique curriculum.

The Suzhou Park Government has recently offered a site of 200 square meters to this social enterprise to build an Aflatoun experience hall. The DBS Foundation grant will be used towards building this facility in Suzhou which shall also focus on providing financial literacy for children.

Vasham Kosa Sejahtera

Indonesia

Vasham offers an end to end service for smallholder farmers that seeks to address challenges within an inefficient and inequitable system that impedes smallholder farmers in the growth out of poverty. Some challenges that the social enterprise helps address for farmers include limited access to credit, fair markets, farm inputs, and information. They provide a complete agribusiness solution for smallholder corn farmers called Konco Programme which includes the delivery of quality farm inputs (seed, organic fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide) on credit, operational cash loans, agronomy training, field support, and direct market access to industry off-takers. The unique attribute of Vasham's model is that they do not charge interest, instead enter a profit-sharing agreement of 90% to farmers and 10% to the social eneterprise ensuring shared alignment in the goals for improving productivity and increasing income. Vasham's product development is centred around four themes of innovation - improve farmer productivity, quality, reduce farming costs, and reduction in risks to deliver on intended mission of increasing smallholder farmer income.

The DBS Foundation grant will be used is to expand their business operations in Sumatra and Java as well as build a standardised recruitment and training programme for their field team.

Wedo Global Limited

Hong Kong

WEDO GLOBAL is a social enterprise working out of Hong Kong to create harmony amongst people of multi cultural diverse backgrounds by addressing issues related to cultural understanding and conflict. They help enhance people's global awareness, cultural understanding and sensitivity by conducting interactive multi-cultural workshops, community-based walking tours and overseas tours. Participants experience, learn and reflect on cultural differences.

WEDO GLOBAL works towards promoting peace & understanding in culturally diverse contexts. They advocate multi-cultural education and also work towards employment and empowerment of ethnic minorities.

Having had good success and social impact in Hong Kong, WEDO GLOBAL will use the grant amount from DBS Foundation towards building an online global platform to cater to small groups and individuals who are looking for unique cultural experiences. Capacity building to strengthen staff commitment and ability in order to cater to fast growing demand will also be addressed. Employing ethnic minority underprivileged groups to form a global team with teammates from diverse cultural backgrounds will be another way how the grant will be put to use.