Sauti has been announced as one of ten winners in the highly competitive 2016 HiiL Justice Accelerator competition.

This comes after a rigorous selection process conducted by The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), which saw over 450 applications from around the world compete for part of the  €160,000 grant funding available.

After a four-month selection process to find the most promising justice entrepreneurs, Sauti was chosen based on the strength of their team, scope, uniqueness and the ability to expand access to justice through a scalable, sustainable and innovative platform.

Sauti, meaning voice in Swahili, is a mobile-based trade information and social accountability platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) engaged in cross-border trade in the East African Community. We are one of the two winners from Kenya and among the 10 startup innovators from 8 countries.

The other winner from Kenya, Familia, is an SMS platform that seeks to empower people to conveniently get information on succession cases.

In association with the World Economic Forum, the Ford Foundation, Thomson Reuter, and other partners, The HiiL Justice Accelerator is working to improve access to justice for 40 million people by 2020. Through challenge competitions such as this, HiiL hopes to promote change where systems are inadequate, and give a voice to change makers who feel isolated, especially  in focus areas such as Legal Tech, Family Justice, Living Wages, and SME empowerment.

Together with the 9 other innovators, Sauti will receive an Innovating Justice Award, access to acceleration funding as well as professional support to facilitate further growth and impact.

As part of the Award, Sauti is attending the Justice Entrepreneurship School and Innovating Justice Forum in the Hague, Netherlands in November 2016. The training includes modules on validation, lean start up methodology, business modeling, impact assessment, justice sector alignment, leadership, IT and product development amongst many.

Thank you to all those who voted for us