How Can A 6-Month Competition for $75,000 Change the World?

A BarakaBits Exclusive

So how can a 6-month competition for $75,000 change the world? When two global giants of innovation get together to create Women Powering Work: Innovations for Economic Equality in the MENA Region.

BarakaBits was in Dubai for exclusive coverage on how this competition is trying to address a big issue for social entrepreneurs: making sure the founders don’t burn out. So what was the secret?

Ashoka and General Electric got the finalists to work with their former rivals.

“The key is that the competition is already over,” explained Lauren Parnell Marino. In only a few hours, the incredible Storytelling Workshop (run by Reem Rahman and supported by GE employees) transformed the former competitors into a unified group of #ChangeMakers.

Mohammed Teleb reflected on the workshop: “I was so happy to give my time to these very human stories that exemplify GE’s support of women. When’s the next one?”

The three winners take home $25,000 each, and all the finalists benefit from media exposure. But they also will leave Dubai with a “mastermind” group of like-minded supporters who, thanks to the technology many of them are highlighting in their work, will be only a click away.

Unlike other events of its type, the competition summit in Dubai wasn’t just for the winners. It was for all the finalists, who are changing the lives of prisoners in Cairo and the lonely doctorates of Jordan, Pakistan, and Yemen. Who are dedicated to revolutionizing Afghani farms, crowded buses in Karachi, and the newly-existent doorsteps of the Bedouins on the Sinai Peninsula.

And that’s #goodnews.

For more info: Ashoka Changemakers and Cynthia McKinney Drayton, Senior Change Manager