Janina: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! Our story starts with Malish James, a refugee in Uganda’s Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. In my day job, I work for the UN, through which I connected with Malish. He shared many stories about his life, and one particular challenge stuck with me—while refugees in the community receive food aid from international organizations, they struggle to afford other commodities, such as new clothes for their children. So in many cases, instead of eating the food, they sell it to supply other basic needs. Together with Malish, we created a solution: Many refugees have ideas for starting their own businesses. However, most of them don’t have access to funding. This is where Bridging Gaps comes in. We transform donations from the Global North to community microloans in the Global South, so refugees in Bidibidi can start their own businesses.
Ariel: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! Were you aware that every year in the US, more than 100 million people qualify for public benefits like Medicaid for health care and SNAP for food access? To qualify for benefits, people must provide documents proving their financial eligibility. The struggle to collect this paperwork from banks, employers, and government records causes millions to lose access to these essential benefits. Impactica builds technology solutions that automate the collection of financial documents and data required for enrollment.
Rumee: Thanks for having me, Spiffy! In recent years, the weather has gotten a bit wild and surprising. It might become really, really hot when it's supposed to be cold, or it might rain a lot more than usual. Now, for people, especially those who need more help and who grow food, like farmers, tricky weather patterns can make it really hard. That means they cannot grow the food they need, cannot get to sell them and earn a living. Farmers need help to protect themselves and also to get through tough times caused by the strange weather. They can buy protection plans to help get money when needed, but these plans can be super expensive and super slow.
