Legal disruptors – do you have an enterprise, startup or just an idea that will improve access to justice for people around the world? The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) wants to hear from you, as it opens its Call for Applications for the Innovating Justice Challenge 2018.
The challenge is open until 30 May 2018, and applications must be submitted via HiiL’s website, www.innovatingjustice.com. Anyone keen to enter is encouraged to attend HiiL’s local launch event at the Tshimologong Precinct on 13 March, http://meetu.ps/e/DY6X5/v7zMb/f.
Now in its seventh year, the HiiL Innovating Justice Challenge is open to justice innovators from all backgrounds. Through the Innovating Justice Challenge, HiiL seeks out and supports those who are working on solutions to help people prevent or resolve their most pressing justice need. HiiL supports entrepreneurs in the justice sector through seed funding, a tailored business acceleration process and access to an international network of potential investors.
“We define pressing justice problems on the basis of research and data that demonstrate the legal needs of people,” explains HiiL founder and CEO Dr Sam Muller, “This means we search for innovations that create rights awareness, provide access to legal services or dispute resolution and improve efficiency and transparency in existing justice policies.
The Challenge is in three parts: the best innovations received through the Challenge will be invited to pitch to a panel of judges at HiiL’s annual Southern Africa Boostcamp, which will take place as part of the Leaderex (www.leaderex.co.za) convention in Sandton on 4 September.
Following that, the most promising Boostcamp participants will be taken to The Hague in order to participate in the HiiL Justice Entrepreneur School, an intensive week-long programme of specialist business training and technical advice, which includes the ability and will then take part in the HiiL Justice Accelerator programme, which runs for three months to a year depending on the innovator’s needs.
Since 2012, more than 50 organisations have taken part in the Justice Accelerator programme. In December 2017, South African entrepreneurs were voted first and second place among their peers at a pitching session at the Innovating Justice Forum.
To find out more, please contact adam.oxford@hiil.org or innovatingjusticeforum@hiil.org, or visit www.innovatingjustice.com. Media are invited to join us at the 13 March event at Tshimologong Precinct from 17.30 on to meet HiiL’s international co-ordinator, local staff and sucesssful justice innovators from previous years.
More information about the Innovating Justice Challenge
In 2018, on the basis of HiiL’s data, the focus is on resolving pressing justice problems in the following five areas:
● Family Justice
● Land- and Neighbour Disputes
● Crime and Law Enforcement
● Employment Justice
● Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises
What do we look for?
● (New) Ventures with a strong potential of delivering concrete justice solutions for many people, including micro, small and medium-sized businesses.
● Innovative justice initiatives that are already making a difference and have the potential and ambition to scale internationally or to many more users.
● Unique initiatives that are solving the most pressing justice problems for people, based on evidence and data, in particular family, land, crime or employment issues.
● Ventures that are financially sustainable and have measurable impact.
● Innovative initiatives within existing justice systems or public institutions, spearheaded by driven intrapreneurs that want to see things work differently.
Criteria: who can apply?
● The founder and applicant should be 18 years of age or older.
● The venture must be committed to providing access to justice underpinned by evidence showing justice needs.
● The person(s) with whom we engage should be the founder or a co-founder of the organization and should be able to make key, high-level, and direction-shifting decisions (such as whether or not to take investments and who to partner with) on behalf of the entire organisation.
● We can only accept innovations to be incorporated with a bank account in the name of the legal entity by the time they receive our grant funding.
How we select winning innovations
● Scope (solving pressing justice problem)
● Impact
● Uniqueness
● Sustainability
● Scalability
● Team
HiiL (The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law) have been based in The Hague since 2005, and want to provide for people’s justice needs worldwide using innovation, creativity and knowledge. Our goal is that by 2030, 150 million people will be able to prevent or resolve their most pressing justice problems.
