Submit a challenge
Bring us the problem. Keep everything we build.
Fifteen minutes to write. No cost, no exclusivity, and a written handover at the end.
THE CHALLENGE LIBRARY•NGO PARTNER NETWORK
Real problems.Claimed and solved by young builders.
Browse the briefs our builders take on, adapted from global open challenges and submitted by community partners. Submit the problem you’d otherwise leave undone.
- Cost to PartnerUSD 0Free for All NGOs
- Build Window8 to 12 WksSupervised Teams
- Nomination Rights10 SeatsPer Access Cohort
Submit a Challenge Brief
100% Owned by Your Community
Community Challenge Shelf
“Briefs flow directly to fellowship pairs and Impact Challenge entrants.”
10 Nomination Rights per CohortHandover Guarantee
Browse challenges
The Challenge Library
Every brief here is a real problem with a named person behind it. Builders claim them through Access or the Impact Challenge. The library is not a separate programme; it is where both begin.
Global open challenges
Adapted from public open-innovation calls by MIT Solve, XPRIZE, UNICEF Innovation and Grand Challenges. We borrow the problem framing only, no partnership or endorsement is implied.
Community challenges
Submitted by NGOs and community partners, vetted by us, and always attached to the people who will use what gets built. Submit yours below.
Agriculture
OpenCrop price access
Kisumu County, Kenya
- Who it affects
- Otieno farms two acres and sells to whoever arrives at the gate first.
- The problem today
- Market rates are published daily, but not in his language, not on his phone, and never before he has already agreed a price.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- A WhatsApp price line: a daily voice note in Dholuo with today's rate at the three nearest markets, and what it was last week.
- What solved looks like
- He can name today's fair price before he sells, and does, for a full season.
Access FellowshipAdapted from a public challenge statement by MIT Solve.
Education
OpenOne teacher, five grades
Nueva Ecija, Philippines
- Who it affects
- Marilou teaches 41 children across five grades in a single room.
- The problem today
- She writes five sets of work by hand every night. The youngest wait while she teaches the oldest.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- A lesson splitter: she types one topic, gets five levelled worksheets in Filipino, printable or readable off a phone.
- What solved looks like
- Her prep drops from two hours to twenty minutes, and every grade gets work at its level.
Adapted from a public challenge statement by XPRIZE Connect.
Livelihoods
In buildArtisan market reach
Chiapas, Mexico
- Who it affects
- A twelve-woman weaving cooperative sells only at a Sunday market.
- The problem today
- The craft is excellent, the photography is not, and the price is set by the trader who shows up with a van.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- A phone catalogue plus a WhatsApp order line the cooperative runs itself, with pricing they set.
- What solved looks like
- Orders arrive from outside the region, and margin per piece rises, measured with them.
Access FellowshipCommunity challenge, illustrative until the first vetted submissions.
Clean energy
OpenShared solar irrigation
Sindh, Pakistan
- Who it affects
- Four families sharing one solar pump between their plots.
- The problem today
- Nobody knows how much water each plot took, so the roster is argued about, not managed.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- A shared logbook on one phone: who pumped, how long, what the soil reading said, and when to water next.
- What solved looks like
- Water is shared without argument, and pumping hours per acre fall.
The Impact ChallengeAdapted from a public challenge statement by Grand Challenges.
Health
OpenClinic queue and follow-up
Kigoma, Tanzania
- Who it affects
- Mothers who travel two hours to a clinic that may already be full.
- The problem today
- There is no way to know the wait, and no reminder when a follow-up is due. Every wasted journey costs a day's income.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- An offline-first queue board the clinic updates, plus SMS follow-up reminders in Kiswahili.
- What solved looks like
- Fewer wasted journeys, and more second visits actually happen.
Access FellowshipCommunity challenge, illustrative until the first vetted submissions.
Climate & health
OpenHeat, air and children
Open · any high-heat district. Example: Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
- Who it affects
- Children in schools and homes without cooling during extreme-heat weeks.
- The problem today
- Heat and air warnings exist at city level, but never reach the classroom or the household that has to act on them. On heat days, daily earners lose the day's wage.
- What you'd ship in 10 weeks
- A local heat-action alert: a simple daily signal for one school, with the three actions to take that day.
- What solved looks like
- Schools act on heat days instead of finding out afterwards.
The Impact ChallengeAdapted from a public challenge statement by UNICEF Office of Innovation.
The Challenge Network
Seven steps from problem to handover.
From the brief you write to the handover we sign. Nothing in between happens without your community in the room.
- 1
Submit
A simple form: the problem, who experiences it, what useful would look like, and a named contact.
- 2
Vet
We review for scope, buildable by a young team in 8 to 12 weeks, safety, community consent and genuine need.
- 3
Brief
Accepted projects become standard Challenge Briefs, tagged by domain, geography, tools and difficulty.
- 4
Match
Briefs flow to fellowship pairs and Impact Challenge entrants. Your contact joins a kickoff call with our coordinator.
- 5
Build
The team builds with your community under BFL supervision, with your feedback at two checkpoints.
- 6
Handover
Everything built belongs to you and your community, with a written handover guide and, where possible, a trained local owner.
- 7
Report back
We report the outcome to you and, with consent, publish the story. Outcomes feed our annual Impact Report, and yours.
What a partnership is worth
Capability a small NGO could never budget for.
A build team costs you nothing and works for eight to twelve weeks. These are the lines we will report back to you, and publish once they are measured with your community.
XX
Builds handed to partner communities
XX
Hours of build capability, at no cost
10
Access seats you may nominate per cohort
XX
Tools still in use at 12 months
The brief
The problem, described by the people living it.
You write it. We turn it into a brief a fellow team can actually build against, scoped, measurable, and owned by you at the end.
Capability you could never budget for.
- Tools
Working digital and AI tools built for your real needs: catalogues, ordering workflows, data collection, learning aids, booking and inventory systems.
- Evidence
A documented outcome and story you can take to your own funders.
- Talent
First access to graduating Access Fellows as volunteers, interns or hires, plus nomination rights for up to 10 fully funded Access Fellowship seats per cohort.
- Visibility
Named partner recognition on our Impact page, with your written permission.
A contact, consent and honesty.
- A person
One named contact with roughly two hours a week during the build.
- Consent
Confirmation that the community knows about and agrees to the project.
- Feedback
Honest input at two checkpoints: tell the builders what is not working.
- Data
Outcome data sharing so results can be measured and reported truthfully.
Safeguards
The rules we won't bend.
Child safety, consent and data dignity are conditions of every build, not clauses at the end of one.
- 01
Always supervised
No team works unsupervised with vulnerable individuals, ever.
- 02
Yours, minimised
Data collected for a project belongs to your organisation and community, is minimised, and is never used for BFL marketing without written consent.
- 03
Real need only
Projects that are really unpaid labour for a commercial operation are declined.
Who stands beside the team
Your problem is never left to learners alone.
Every accepted brief is supervised. A named BFL coordinator and a mentor bench sit between your community and the build team for the full eight to twelve weeks.
Partnership coordinator
Your single named contact at BFL. Runs the kickoff, the two checkpoints and the handover review.
Practitioner mentor
An operator or NGO field lead assigned to the team, who has delivered in a comparable context before.
Technical reviewer
Reviews data handling, AI use and maintainability before anything is deployed in your community.
Safeguarding lead
Signs off on consent, supervision and child-safety arrangements before the first community visit.
The Challenge Brief
What we'll ask you.
Ten fields, fifteen minutes. If it is accepted, this becomes the brief a build team works from.
The ten fields
- 01 Organisation and named contact
- 02 Community and location
- 03 The problem, in one paragraph
- 04 Who experiences it, and how often
- 05 What exists today
- 06 What a good outcome would look like
- 07 Constraints: language, connectivity, devices, budget
- 08 Community consent confirmation
- 09 Preferred timeline
- 10 What your organisation commits: contact hours, community access, checkpoint feedback
Challenge brief
Send us the problem.
Fifteen minutes to write, no cost, no exclusivity. If it is not a fit for a builder team, we will tell you that quickly rather than leave you waiting.
We use what you send here to reply to you and nothing else. Under-18s should have a parent, guardian or teacher send the enquiry with them.