10 philanthropy projects worth knowing about

1. The Tej Kohli Cornea Institute

To say that you will eliminate Corneal Blindness by 2030 seems like a bold claim to make, but not for tech entrepreneur Tej Kohli, founder of the Tej Kohli Foundation. In a recent interview with Forbes, the Dehli-born billionaire said that he wanted ‘to halve the number of people with blindness by 2030-2035’.  Achieving this mission will require a scalable and affordable solution for the masses, and through the acquisition of proprietary new biotechnologies and his investments into AI, Tej Kohli, is dedicated to making this a reality.

2. Vivibot

Whilst there are plenty of projects dedicated to curing cancer, there are far fewer that help people to deal with the consequences. Vivibot focuses on providing adolescent and young adult cancer survivors a safe space to talk about managing life after cancer. Founded by San Francisco institute Hope Lab, Vivibot sets out to highlight the pattern of conversation around cancer, in turn promoting physiological resilience, and entitling young people to have control over their care.

3. The Girls Opportunity Alliance

Formed by Michelle Obama, as part of the The Obama foundation, The Girls Opportunity Alliance seeks to empower adolescent girls around the world through education. The Girls Opportunity Alliance ensures girls all over the world are receiving the education they need and deserve, so that they reach their full potential.

4. Global Fin Print

The Global Fin Print brings together global researchers and collaborators, to study a wide variety of marine life, helping to assess knowledge of the vanishing ecosystems and therefore, in turn, help to inform emerging actions, helping to slow global warming. The project was originally created by the late Paul Allen and was the first survey of its type, helping to inform our wider understanding of shark growth patterns, and the long term effects of the decline in marine life. It hopes over time to be able to improve conservation plans and raise awareness of the dangerous ecological effects of a declining shark population.

5. Microloan Foundation

The Microloan Foundation helps educate and provide business training for women in developing countries, founded in the late 1990’s by Peter Ryan, the loans ensure women can become self- sufficient, and ultimately independent.  This has a long term overall impact, helping to break the poverty-stricken cycle through education. Since the project began, 80% of their clients have increasing financial independence and 20% of women have increased household asset ownership.

6. TrialWatch

Part of the Clooney Foundation, TrialWatch’s object is to shed light on global injustices in trials around the world, advocating for justice for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Introduced earlier this year, the revolutionary twist is the use of technology as part of TrialWatch. Partnered with Microsoft, TrialWatch has an app uses Microsoft A.I to do speech-to-text translation, which overall simplifies the job of documenting a trial. Overall this will be transformative for the legal system.

7. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s primary role is to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty, but overall they have a wide variety of different projects including accelerating the decline in HIV worldwide. In providing simplified HIV treatments, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hope to prevent further infection, tackling HIV on a global scale. The Foundation releases an annual  ‘Goalkeeper’ report,  which illustrates how the project is succeeding, helping to further ‘accelerate progress in the fight against poverty by helping to diagnose urgent problems, identify promising solutions, measure and interpret key results, and spread best practices.’

8. Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Disaster Relief and Recovery project aims to not only provide immediate support following natural disasters, but they are also dedicated to ensuring that there are resources for long term recovery. More often than not, countries ravished by natural disasters will still be affected down the line. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation ensures that this is not the case in a variety of different ways, including their Connecting Business Initiative, which connects small businesses to resources in the government and at a global level, giving them the help they need. In focusing on the after effects of disaster relief, the Conrad N. Foundation provides a unique take on disaster relief.

9. Open Society Foundations

They say a picture can tell a thousand words and the Open Society Foundation’s Documentary Photography Project highlights the importance of photography and other visual media when it comes to public perception. The Open Society Foundation believe pictures have the power to change minds and reframe narratives, supporting photographers whose work triggers political thought, through grants, exhibitions and public programs.

10. Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation’s ‘Challenging Inequality’ project challenges the structural inequality that still revolves around gender, race, class, disability and ethnicity. Internationality the project seeks for more accountability for violence and in turn attempts to reshape communities, and their attitudes towards gender, race, class, disability and ethnicity.