Bringing Together the Best and Brightest Minds Working in Anti-Corruption Technology

C5, the investment specialist firm focused on cyber security, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, has announced the winners of its inaugural Shield in the Cloud competition. The challenge, supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS), PeaceTech Lab, and SAP NS2, was created to bring together the best and brightest minds working in anti-corruption technology.

Watch the event video here.

Prizes were awarded in three categories: Dream Big, Not for Profit, and Government. The winners were:

1. Dream Big – Donor: Mark Labs. Currently, billions of dollars in the nonprofit space are lost every year due to fraud, waste, and mismanagement. Mark Labs is building the technology that allows decision makers to tackle this corruption and use data as an asset. Mark Labs’ technology helps improve accountability and transparency compliance by offering a SaaS platform that quantifies social impact.
2. Dream Big – Local Community: MyndGenie. In India, government agencies run many programs to assist local communities. However, their needs are not always met because corruption and delays cause operational inefficiencies. MyndGenie created a product called the Benefit Entitlement Tracking Solution (BETS), which digitizes data at source and provides complete visibility of operations. BETS is a product designed to deliver Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to beneficiaries.
3. Dream Big – Global Trade: Pole Star – PurpleTRAC. Over 90% Of world trade is transported by sea, leading to an exponential increase in the regulatory focus on maritime trade. There is demand to simplify, automate, streamline, and record the complex required compliance process required for Institutions with sanctions and regulatory exposures to shipping. PurpleTRAC is a comprehensive regulatory technology sanctions compliance screening and vessel tracking solution. It was built for organizations that have exposure to shipping and cargo and need to know who, what and where they are trading with at all times.
4. Not for Profit: Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a technology provider that deploys its crowdsourcing software platform to enable organizations around the world to collect, manage, visualize, and respond to information from their stakeholders, beneficiaries, or constituents. Ushahidi enables any citizen with a phone or computer to report on violence, corruption, human rights abuses, threats to public safety, lacking accountability, and other subject areas depending upon the focus of the project.
5. Government: Transparency International Ukraine – ProZorro.Sale. ProZorro.Sale is a project of the reform of the state asset sales system in Ukraine. The goal is to develop a transparent electronic asset sales system. It involves a central database (CDB) that stores all information about the transaction (i.e. asset description, auction results, signed contracts, etc) and commercial platforms connected to the database via on Application Programming Interface (API).

These winners were chosen from 61 applicants across 28 countries. Prize winners will receive AWS Promotional Credits and the option of taking a place at C5’s PeaceTech Accelerator in Washington D.C. to further develop their products under the guidance of C5, AWS, SAP NS2 and PeaceTech Lab mentors.

Photo Credit: C5