AI for Global Development Accelerator: Introducing our cohort
Given the speed at which Generative AI has evolved in recent years, the question we now face is not whether AI will change the world, but how.
At The Agency Fund, we’re optimistic about the technology’s potential to improve lives, including in low and middle income countries where healthcare, education, and other basic services may be limited. We can imagine a global web of digitally powered social services that harness AI to expand human agency, solve persistent challenges, and grow local economies. To realize this vision, it’s essential to prioritize thoughtful and socially responsible design to ensure these technologies uplift and strengthen communities, creating opportunities for all rather than perpetuating inequality or undermining vital institutions.
That’s why we’re launching the AI for Global Development Accelerator, in collaboration with OpenAI and the Center for Global Development.
With this program, we aim to steward and fast-track the safe, responsive, high impact AI solutions that communities need. The seven organizations we’ve selected to participate are among the world’s most thoughtful social innovators, and they’re already doing responsible work with technology. In 2025, they’ll not only receive funding but also access to best-in-class engineers, data scientists, and behavioral scientists, along with implementation support and a bevy of OpenAI credits. They will also have the opportunity to explore challenges and share learnings with policy makers through convenings organized with CGD.
Over the course of the year, the program will provide group activities and tailored technical guidance to participating organizations.
Each participant will receive hands-on engineering, behavioral science and development economics support focused on specific objectives identified in two-week sprints.
Technical teams will sync at mutually agreed intervals—from weekly to bi-monthly—to track progress against outcomes defined in their agreements.
The cohort of peer awardee organizations will convene monthly online to share updates on product development, tooling, and evaluation results, fostering collaboration and cross-learning through technical advice from peers and partners.
Dedicated communication channels will be established to facilitate daily interaction among participants and staff. Staff will be available to assist with questions and promote peer learning, contributing to a shared repository of resources and solutions.
In collaboration with Project Tech4Dev, in-person events will be held multiple times in 2025, with each awardee represented by at least one technical team member.
By exploring and evaluating these seven specific use cases, the program aims to demonstrate how generative AI can unlock significant and credible impacts in global development. We’ll test, learn, and adapt as we go—and are absolutely committed to sharing what we find, to catalyze growth across the entire social sector.
Learn more about the selected projects below:
Rocket Learning is an organization that directly serves daycare workers in government-run daycare centers, as well as parents of children between the ages of 3 and 6 who attend these centers. They will integrate AI to create a Personalized Development Coach (PDC) for parents and a Smart Teaching Assistant (STA) for daycare workers, delivering adaptive learning content via WhatsApp to enhance ECE for underserved children in India.
Jacaranda Health deploys affordable and scalable solutions through government hospitals to improve the quality of maternal care and newborn outcomes in Kenya. Through two-way SMS exchange, their AI-enabled digital health service called PROMPTs empowers women to seek care at the right time and place, giving them greater agency in the health system. They will be enhancing their PROMPTS platform with a Swahili-speaking voice Q&A functionality, leveraging OpenAI tools to bridge gaps in maternal care for low-literacy and sight-impaired mothers in Kenya, through accurate speech-to-text, fluent text-to-speech, and integrated AI responses.
Noora Health equips family caregivers with life-saving skills through its Care Companion Program (CCP), delivering in-facility training, culturally relevant educational content, and simplified health guidance. They will be enhancing their Remote Engagement Service (RES) serving India with OpenAI’s tools to deliver personalized health support, automate query responses, and prioritize high-risk cases, transforming caregiver training into a dynamic, holistic health companion.
Reach Digital Health serves vulnerable populations, primarily focusing on women, children, youth, and marginalised communities across various health areas. They will integrate AI into programs like MomConnect to enhance personalized healthcare delivery and user engagement for vulnerable populations in South Africa.
Digital Green collaborates with farmers, public and private organizations, leveraging its Farmer.Chat platform to deliver localized, actionable farming solutions. They will enhance Farmer.Chat with advanced AI capabilities, including improved automatic speech recognition (ASR) for Hausa, offline content access, and smarter conversational interfaces, leveraging partnerships to provide accurate, inclusive, and scalable agricultural advisory services in Nigeria.
Precision Development serves smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries by providing timely, accurate, and actionable agricultural information to improve their livelihoods. They will integrate generative AI to deliver highly personalized, real-time agricultural advisories, leveraging multilingual text-to-speech, hyper-local data processing, and scalable automation to enhance farmer productivity and resilience in India.
Youth Impact is an evidence-based, youth-led organization based in Botswana that identifies, adapts and scales up health and education programs designed by youth for the youth worldwide. They will integrate generative AI into their ConnectEd program to scale voice-to-voice AI tutoring and automated scheduling, enabling personalized, cost-effective learning for 700,000 children in Karnataka, India by 2025.
You can learn more about the organizations, projects they are working on, and other accelerator programming at this wiki.
Blog written and edited by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin.
Filming and editing by Michael Clarke, with material from Rocket Learning, Jacaranda Health, Reach Digital Health, Noora Health, Digital Green, Precision Development (PxD), Youth Impact and Centre for Global Development.