Fondation Botnar

Last updated
Fondation Botnar
Formation2003
FounderMarcela Botnar
Location
  • Basel, Switzerland
Websitewww.fondationbotnar.org

Fondation Botnar is a philanthropic foundation based in Basel, Switzerland. The foundation was founded in 2003 by Marcela Botnar, wife of businessman and philanthropist Octav Botnar. It is one of the largest foundations in Switzerland, holding CHF 3.8 billion in assets. [1] Fondation Botnar champions the use of AI and digital technologies to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people in growing urban environments. [2] The foundation provides a range of funding opportunities to enable research and innovative projects that fit within its strategic focus. [3]

Contents

History

In 2003, Fondation Botnar was founded by Marcela Botnar to continue the philanthropic work of herself and her husband Octav Botnar.

Following the death of Marcela and Octav Botnar’s only child, Camelia Eugenia Botnar, who died in 1972 at the age of 20 in a car accident, the couple focused on philanthropic work and funded several large projects in their daughter’s name. When Octav Botnar died, Marcela continued the giving and carried out the wish of Octav Botnar and created Fondation Botnar. Fondation Botnar was the sole beneficiary of Marcela Botnar’s will. [4]

Projects

Fondation Botnar supports a range of projects and initiatives within its strategic area of focus.

OurCity

OurCity is one of Fondation Botnar’s key initiatives, aiming to support selected cities around the world to implement coordinated programs that leverage digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI), and transform them into places where young people’s wellbeing and opportunity is secured. The foundation sees OurCity as a process that will catalyse stakeholders and drive policy change through inclusive engagement and advocacy. The initiative collaborates with young people, civil society, policymakers, innovators, and other city champions to nurture wellbeing and opportunity for all. [5]

African Youth Digital Innovation Platform

Fondation Botnar works with Unicef on the African Youth Digital Innovation Platform. The project aims to catalyse young people’s creativity and ideas on how to create economically viable business models and employment opportunities for young people across the African region. [6]

Healthy Cities for Adolescents

Fondation Botnar funds the Healthy Cities for Adolescents Program, an  initiative managed by the International Society of Urban Health (ISUH). The program fosters multi-stakeholder, community-led consortium representing diverse groups including partners from government, civil society, and the private sector to address the health and wellbeing of young people in secondary cities. [7] [8]

D-Tree International

Since June 2018, the foundation has worked together with the Human Development Innovation Fund (HDIF) and have awarded D-tree international more than $6 million to work with the Zanzibar Ministry of Health and key partners to roll out a national digital community health system to improve maternal, newborn, and child health services. The project will assist community health workers and equip them with digital technology to manage care for families, women and children. [9]

Also, with D-tree international, is the Afya-Tek program, a consortium of five organisations that are working to improve the decision-making and quality of care in Tanzania. Afya-Tek offers a digital link between patients, government health facilities, community health workers, and the private sector drug dispensers known as Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets. [10]

Botnar Research Centre for Child Health

In September 2018 it was announced that Fondation Botnar had given CHF 100 million to finance the founding of the Botnar Research Centre for Child Health (BRCCH). The research centre has been set up by the University of Basel and ETH Zurich. The purpose of the centre is to develop new methods and digital innovations that can be used in paediatrics around the world, especially resource-poor countries. [11]

Ada Health Partnership

Fondation Botnar announced a new partnership with Ada Health in 2018. The partnership aims to bring AI-powered healthcare to East Africa and Romania. The partnership has resulted in Ada's app becoming the first health guidance app to feature Swahili language integration, making its health assessment technology available to more than 100 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa. [12]

UNICEF Romania

In Romania, Fondation Botnar contributes to an initiative run by UNICEF that is developing and implementing a community-based services modelling project in Romania's Bacau region—one of the poorest regions in Europe. The project is recruiting community workers and equipping them with a digital tablet application to maintain up to date information on families and children within the region, taking the user through a list of questions. The data can then be used to prescribe precision steps and packages to help the children, such as immunisation or education intervention. It can also be used to help policy makers understand where resources are needed. The project has so far helped over 54,000 children. [13]

ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health

The inter-agency collaboration between the World Health Organization and the ITU, the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health was funded by the foundation.

Partnerships

Fondation Botnar has memberships in the following partnerships/organisations.

Related Research Articles

Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors that are public initiatives for public good, such as those that focus on the provision of public services. A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist.

Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for purposes of well-intent, while at the same time reducing its potential for harm. It advocates for transparency, accountability, and limiting the collection of personal information.

Octav Botnar was a self-made businessman who founded Datsun UK and its associated car retail business Automotive Financial Group (AFG). He was a noted philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Pitroda</span> Indian inventor and businessman (born 1942)

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, also known as Sam Pitroda is an Indian telecommunication engineer and entrepreneur. He was born in Titlagarh in the eastern Indian state of Odisha to a Gujarati family. He was also an advisor to the PM during Dr. Manmohan Singh's tenure and for United Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux Foundation</span> Non-profit technology consortium to develop the Linux operating system

The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to support Linux development and open-source software projects. In addition to providing a neutral home where Linux kernel development can be fostered, the LF is dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open-source projects to accelerate technology development and encourage commercial adoption.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kris Gopalakrishnan</span> Indian billionaire

Senapathy "Kris" Gopalakrishnan is an Indian businessman and the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, an accelerator that helps start-ups during the early stage of their business journey. Kris served as the vice chairman of Infosys from 2011 to 2014 and the chief executive officer and managing director of Infosys from 2007 to 2011. Kris is one of the co-founders of Infosys.

mHealth Medicine and public health supported by mobile devices

mHealth is an abbreviation for mobile health, a term used for the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices. The term is most commonly used in reference to using mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs), and wearable devices such as smart watches, for health services, information, and data collection. The mHealth field has emerged as a sub-segment of eHealth, the use of information and communication technology (ICT), such as computers, mobile phones, communications satellite, patient monitors, etc., for health services and information. mHealth applications include the use of mobile devices in collecting community and clinical health data, delivery/sharing of healthcare information for practitioners, researchers and patients, real-time monitoring of patient vital signs, the direct provision of care as well as training and collaboration of health workers.

Max Price is a former vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. He succeeded Njabulo Ndebele and held this position for 10 years from 19 August 2008 until 30 June 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Fabian</span> Polish-American technologist

Christopher Fabian is a technologist who works for UNICEF. He founded technology and finance initiatives in both the public and private sector, including the creation in 2006, of UNICEF's Innovation Unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Surman</span> Canadian internet activist

Mark Surman is a Canadian open internet activist and the president and executive director of the Mozilla Foundation. He is a leading advocate for trustworthy AI, digital privacy, and the open internet. Before joining the Mozilla Foundation, Mark spent more than 15 years leading organizations and projects promoting the use of the internet and open source for social empowerment in many countries around the world.

Arnold VenturesLLC is focused on evidence-based giving in a wide range of categories including: criminal justice, education, health care, and public finance. The organization was founded by billionaires John D. Arnold and Laura Arnold in 2010.

Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supporting government with software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits, consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working within government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doreen Bogdan-Martin</span> Secretary-General of the ITU

Doreen Bogdan-Martin is an American diplomat and engineer, current Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union. She was elected at the 2022 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Bucharest, and as the first woman in the 157-year history of the ITU to become the Secretary-General. Previously, she was the first woman to become an Elected Official of the ITU, as the Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU.

MIT Solve is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Solve is a marketplace for social impact innovation. Through open innovation Challenges, Solve finds tech-based social entrepreneurs all around the world. Solve then brings together MIT’s innovation ecosystem and a community of Members to fund and support these entrepreneurs to help them drive lasting, transformational impact. Currently, Solve supports 228 Solver and Fellow teams. Solve has catalyzed over $50 million in commitments for Solver teams and social entrepreneurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simprints</span> Nonprofit technology company

Simprints is a nonprofit technology company originating at the University of Cambridge. The company builds biometric fingerprint technology for use by governments, NGOs, and nonprofits for people in the developing world who lack proof of legal identity. The company promotes a portable biometric system designed for front line workers. The technology uses Bluetooth to connect to an Android mobile device that is interoperable with existing mHealth systems such as CommCare, ODK, or DHIS2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Observatory on Digital Communication</span> UNESCO project based in Milan, Italy

The Observatory on Digital Communication (OCCAM) was established in 1996 by UNESCO in Milan, with the Agreements signed by the Director General, Federico Mayor and Marco Formentini in June 1996. The acronym stands for Observatory for Cultural Communication and Audiovisual in the Mediterranean.

The regulation of artificial intelligence is the development of public sector policies and laws for promoting and regulating artificial intelligence (AI); it is therefore related to the broader regulation of algorithms. The regulatory and policy landscape for AI is an emerging issue in jurisdictions globally, including in the European Union and in supra-national bodies like the IEEE, OECD and others. Since 2016, a wave of AI ethics guidelines have been published in order to maintain social control over the technology. Regulation is considered necessary to both encourage AI and manage associated risks. In addition to regulation, AI-deploying organizations need to play a central role in creating and deploying trustworthy AI in line with the principles of trustworthy AI, and take accountability to mitigate the risks. Regulation of AI through mechanisms such as review boards can also be seen as social means to approach the AI control problem.

SwissCovid is a COVID-19 contact tracing app used for digital contact tracing in Switzerland. Use of the app is voluntary and based on a decentralized approach using Bluetooth Low Energy and Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (dp3t).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmond de Rothschild Foundations</span> Philanthropic organization

The Edmond de Rothschild Foundations is an international philanthropic organization launched in 2005 to regroup a number of historic legacies instituted by heirs of the Rothschild family, particularly its Paris and Naples branches, as well as some of the family's contemporary philanthropic initiatives. Named in honor of the philanthropist Edmond James de Rothschild (1845–1934) and led today by his direct descendants, the network operates in the areas of the arts, health, entrepreneurship, and the sharing of best practices in philanthropy.

Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation takes many forms. It includes mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, vaccine passports, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing, Web software for the creation of related information services, and research and development software. A common issue is that few apps interoperate, reducing their effectiveness.

References

  1. ↑ "Finance and Governance - Fondation Botnar". Fondation Botnar. Archived from the original on 2018-10-03. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  2. ↑ "Recommendations on Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Global Health" . Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  3. ↑ "Mobile health and apps news in brief". Digital Health. 2018-10-19. Retrieved 2018-12-18.
  4. ↑ "The Botnar Legacy". Fondation Botnar. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  5. ↑ "OurCity initiative - Fondation Botnar". Fondation Botnar. 2020-07-10. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  6. ↑ "The African Youth Digital Innovation Platform". Fondation Botnar. 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  7. ↑ "Healthy Cities for Adolescents Program". Fondation Botnar. 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  8. ↑ "Coronavirus: Government urged to equip DOVVSU for sexual gender-based violence". www.ghanaweb.com. 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  9. ↑ "Leading digital health organization, D-tree International, awarded $6 million to support Zanzibar Ministry of Health to roll out national digitally-enabled community health worker program - United Republic of Tanzania". ReliefWeb. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  10. ↑ Watts, Geoff. "The Tanzanian digital health agenda" (PDF). The Lancet.
  11. ↑ "Bâle – Nouveau centre de recherche en pédiatrie". Tribune de Genève (in French). ISSN   1010-2248 . Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  12. ↑ Somauroo, Dr James. "Ada Health Launches World's First AI-Powered Health App In Swahili". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  13. ↑ "Social Inclusion Intervention: Romania". Fondation Botnar. Retrieved 2018-10-05.
  14. ↑ "PMNCH | World Health Organization". WHO. Archived from the original on November 15, 2006. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  15. ↑ "List of Company/Organization containing FONDATIONBOTNAR". www.itu.int. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  16. ↑ "EFC-Fondation Botnar" . Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  17. ↑ "Fondation Botnar". SwissFoundations (in German). Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  18. ↑ "Fondation Botnar". EVPA. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  19. ↑ Lim, Claudine (2018-12-19). "Introducing the Digital Principles first Advisory Council". Principles for Digital Development. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  20. ↑ "First Advisory Council for the Principles for Digital Development Launched to Support a Growing Community of Endorsers". Digital Impact Alliance. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.