Innovate for All Announces New Projects

ATLANTA — The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation is excited to announce the addition of two projects, Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels and Mini City, to the fourth cycle of its flagship Innovate for All program under the Economic Opportunity pillar. These two projects aim to serve Georgia’s most underserved and vulnerable communities.

Innovate for All supports a portfolio of projects led by Georgia innovators, problem solvers, and risk takers who scale essential innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship initiatives across the state. Through these efforts, selected projects help empower and sustain access to resources that create economic and community opportunities for Georgia’s rural, suburban, and urban centers, with a focus on the people and places that are often overlooked as innovation hubs.

“These funded projects provide solutions to two ever growing challenges that are not unique to Georgia: access to healthcare, and digital tools for our most vulnerable communities’ to access life critical services that can result in new workforce opportunities,” said Jamal Lewis, the Partnership’s economic opportunity manager. “Our Innovate for All awardees are committed to increasing and improving access, career pathways, innovation, and economic opportunities all over Georgia. What they create here could serve as a blueprint for other parts of the country facing similar challenges.”

Kids’-Doc-On Wheels

Dr. Lynette Wilson-Phillips has assembled a unique team of public and private sector partners to bring Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels (KDOW) — a mobile, school-based health center unit (SBHC) — to underserved communities throughout Georgia. Children in underserved communities often develop more health issues than their wealthier peers, and acquiring adequate treatment comes with many obstacles. The combination of lack of resources and health problems often drives kids toward academic underachievement, dropping out of school, and unemployment. SBHCs offer children attentive medical care from a pediatrician that they can trust without distracting from their education. KDOW has connected established organizations, including university medical departments, medical specialists, YMCAs, pharmacies, community groups, and more with the shared goal of creating mobile SBHC units that provide excellent medical and customer service. In addition to building physical mobile units, KDOW will offer services via Telehealth to accommodate to the varying needs of students.

“Receiving the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation grant will allow Kids’-Doc-On-Wheels to help close the gap in Georgia by expanding access to healthcare to our most vulnerable population—underserved children. Impacting the health of children can change the physical, mental, and spiritual health of a community. KDOW looks forward to an innovative collaboration with school systems, medical schools, and primary care facilities to advance our unique service delivery. Preventative healthcare will change the trajectory of a lifetime of health challenges for thousands, and the greater than 40 percent of the counties in the state of Georgia without a pediatrician will now have a chance for quality comprehensive service.”

— Dr. Lynette Wilson-Phillips

Mini City

Co-Founded by India Hayes, Mini City directly connects homeless and at-risk people to digital tools that aid with acquiring identification, an obstacle that has historically prevented homeless people from accessing Social Security benefits, housing services and medical services, among other issues. In many cases, acquiring identification can appear impossible without having a credit, address, or banking history, but Mini City facilitates connections between the homeless and local support services that can help them based on their specific needs. Mini City’s technology is brought directly to homeless populations at shelters, MARTA transit stations, and the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to tailor the process to their needs, but its resources may be used by everyone. To date, Mini City has helped more than 1,400 vulnerable citizens obtain legal forms of identification and government benefits, which enabled them to pursue more opportunities and assistance. In its compassionate grassroot efforts to break the cycle of homelessness, Mini City operates a system with industry best practices for cybersecurity and encryption to protect citizens’ data.

“The Mini City team is extremely grateful for this generous funding and partnership via the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation. This support will enable us to change the lives of nearly 25,000 vulnerable citizens through our compassionate tech hub, bringing life critical benefits to disadvantaged communities as they take steps towards sustainability. We will continue to support our current partners, and plan to empower an additional 150 community-based organizations with our software. We look forward to starting this new journey with PIN!”

— India Hayes, CEO of Mini City