Chan Zuckerberg Initiative AI Meets Biology GPU Compute Research RFA

The Halcyon Africa Innovation in Agriculture and Food Security Accelerator supports early-stage, impact-driven ventures across Sub-Saharan Africa that are strengthening agriculture and food systems through market-based solutions. The 2027 cohort is open for applications until 23 October 2026. Technology is explicitly central to the scope: the programme welcomes tech-enabled agriculture and food security solutions across ten priority sectors, including agricultural data platforms, digital extension services, precision agriculture tools and agri-fintech innovations, all areas where AI and machine learning are typically the core of a competitive product. Each selected venture receives a 10,000 US dollar equity-free stipend and 10,000 dollars in Amazon Web Services credits, together with access to Halcyon's community of more than 650 founders, professional advisory support, expert-led workshops covering leadership development, capital strategy and product-market fit, and investor networking. The format is hybrid, combining virtual sessions with in-person residencies in Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya. What distinguishes this from most AI-for-agriculture funding is the applicant profile: it targets commercial ventures with working products and demonstrated traction rather than research teams, requiring paid-pilot or post-revenue stage with a working minimum viable product. For African AgTech founders building AI-driven advisory, monitoring or decision-support tools who have passed the prototype stage and need capital strategy support and investor access more than research funding, this is a well-matched and currently open opportunity.

The 20th EIFL Public Library Innovation Award recognises outstanding and innovative AI literacy training programmes run by public and community libraries in developing and transition economy countries, with each winner receiving a trophy, 1,500 US dollars and international publicity through EIFL's networks. Strong entries help people build practical AI skills, think critically about AI outputs and use emerging technology responsibly and safely; programmes may be in person or online, standalone or embedded in media and information literacy work, aimed at the general public or specific groups, and run in partnership with universities, NGOs or other organisations. This is an award for existing work rather than a project grant: requests to fund a new programme are not accepted, and the programme must have started in or after January 2024, run for at least six months, still be operating, and show evidence of results such as participant numbers and stories. Programmes that only provide access to AI tools without structured training, or that offer general ICT or digital skills training without an AI literacy focus, are excluded. Applicants download the application form, available in English, French, Russian or Spanish, plus a signature page, and submit online through the EIFL system by 26 October 2026. The cash value is small, but the award's international visibility is useful for libraries building a case for larger AI literacy funding.

The Bias Bounty Mapping Equity Challenge is a 10,000 US dollar competition run by Zindi with Humane Intelligence and support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, and it is methodologically distinctive in a way that matters to anyone working on AI fairness measurement. Rather than ranking submissions on aggregate accuracy, the challenge scores entries partly on how equitably a model performs across climate-vulnerable communities in the United States, operationalising the long-standing critique that a single accuracy number hides systematic underperformance on the populations most exposed to harm. The competition doubles as a pilot of Humane Intelligence's Bias Scoring API, so participants gain early hands-on exposure to a concrete fairness evaluation instrument rather than only a leaderboard placement, which is the main non-monetary reason to enter. The underlying task is geospatial mapping applied to climate and environmental equity, placing the challenge at the intersection of responsible AI evaluation and climate adaptation. Participation is open to all registered Zindi users with no geographic restriction on entrants, even though the dataset itself covers United States communities, which makes this one of the more accessible fairness-focused opportunities for researchers and practitioners outside well-funded institutions. Because it is a bounty-style competition rather than a grant, there is no proposal, no institutional affiliation requirement and no reporting burden; the submission deadline is 31 October 2026.