If you are an organization that is actively driving social progress and is ready to scale your service using WhatsApp, then this is for you.

The follow organizations will not be considered:

Governments.

Any government agency, e.g. political parties, the military, national security and/or law enforcement.
Any non-profit organization that represents a government.

Any private service providers to governments, e.g. campaign strategy, voting, government aggregators.

No promotion, political campaigning, voter data gathering or any sort of election influencing will be allowed by any type of organization.

Refer to WhatsApp Commerce Policy

No, it’s not a requirement. However we are looking for organizations with a clear and suitable use-case for WhatsApp so if you have tried and tested anything with users on WhatsApp before we hope it helped you refine your idea.

No, it’s not a requirement, but if you have experience with messaging and bots we want to know about it.

No, but we will give preference to organizations with potential to scale via WhatsApp.

Certainly not, but we need to be confident that you have a committed and agile team with a suitable starting point and the tenacity and ability to iterate and learn. You will receive input during the 4-month accelerator to help you grow and achieve your goals. Right now we are interested in why you are the right team to support and invest in.

No, but we will give preference to organizations that can have the biggest impact and operate in countries where WhatsApp is socially well adopted and actively used.

It does not matter in how many languages you operate, but it matters that your program has a clear roadmap on who it is serving and why you are doing it in specific languages.

No, we believe that both small or big, tech savvy or new-to-digital organizations are able to successfully use WhatsApp.

There are two stages to the Chat for Impact Summit.

Stage 1: The three-day virtual summit

If you are one of the 30 organizations that gets selected for the virtual summit you are committing to the following:

Two dedicated team members to attend all sessions.

Each day will have between 2-4 hours of online sessions. 

Complete all pre-work assignments before the summit. It should take 1-2 hours to complete.

Complete all homework assignments during the summit. The end goal of the summit is to demo your WhatsApp use-case to a panel. Preparing for this will require time outside of the summit hours. Plan to spend at least 1-2 hours additional per day to plan and build your demo.

Stage 2: The four-month accelerator 

If you are selected as one of the 10 organizations to continue in the accelerator post the summit you are committing to: 

Attend 5 monthly sessions (60-90 mins per session).

These will be group sessions, hosted online on dates made available in advance. 

Attend bi-weekly check-ins (30 mins per session) to update on progress and discuss any issues and/or ideas.

You will need to launch your live WhatsApp service within 4 months from the accelerator.

Demo final service at the end of the accelerator and complete a capstone project to share learnings.

We will ask you for your preference and try to accommodate all preferences within reason, but the final decision is ours.

The ideal combination is a business lead (i.e. a team member with a strategic focus and decision making ability) as well as technical lead (i.e. an operational, hands-on team member that will be responsible for implementation of your service).

Selected organizations will receive the summit agenda beforehand and will be allowed to invite additional team members to specific sessions as needed. However, no more than four members per organization will be able to attend a single session

Apart from the time commitment as explained above you will require a computer with internet access and sufficient data to attend all virtual sessions on a conference tool such as Zoom. Ideally your connection and data will allow you to attend the sessions with your video on.

Yes. If a WhatsApp service is not a strategic objective for your organization for 2021 then it is not the right time for you to apply for the summit.

Yes, but the Chat for Impact Summit will be focused on building services for the WhatsApp Business API only. If you do not plan on scaling your service to use the API, this is not the right time for you to apply.

Turn.io is hosting the summit alongside WhatsApp however you are not obligated to use them as your Business Solution Provider (BSP). All summit participants will be able to work post the summit with any one of WhatsApp’s authorized Business Solution Providers. However, do note that even though the focus of the summit is on using chat to have an impact, all hands-on sessions will be on the Turn.io platform.

The WhatsApp Business API powers communication with users all over the world, so you can connect with them on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way.

The WhatsApp Business API is a paid product. As part of the Summit you may be granted a subsidised license for up to 12 months, thereafter further use of the API may result in monthly fees and/or messaging fees.

WhatsApp is designed for simple, secure and reliable messaging. This includes one-on-one communication and chat bots with a clear escalation path to a human. Please refer to the WhatsApp Commerce Policy and WhatsApp Business Policy to familiarise yourself with the type of messages that are and are not allowed on the WhatsApp Business API.

Business Service Providers (BSPs) are third-party solution providers with expertise on the WhatsApp Business API. These BSPs can help you communicate with your customers on WhatsApp for the approved use-cases of customer support and time-sensitive, personalized notifications. You can have a look at the list of authorized BSPs. 

We may or may not do this in the future again.

Yes, you may apply but remember government entities, agencies and/or institutions will not be considered

We are looking for impact organizations with a strong mission and an engaging use-case suitable to the WhatsApp Business API. We are looking for dedicated teams with in-depth knowledge of their users and who are currently ready and strategically focused to build and drive a successful WhatsApp service.

The focus of this Chat for Impact Summit is social justice, and although all impact organizations are welcome to apply we will consider the organization’s area of focus and end-user geographies. We aim to invite a diverse group of participants ranging in focus, geographies, scale and digital maturity.

There is unfortunately no straightforward answer to this question. If you didn’t answer all the questions or violated any of the application guidelines then the answer is easy. But if you gave it your best effort it is much more tricky to answer why. We can only say that it is less about your application lacking something specific and more about others being particularly good.

There is nothing stopping you from applying for a WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) through any Business Service Provider (BSP) or to start using the WhatApp Business App. If we ever host another Chat for Impact Summit you are also more than welcome to apply again.

You will receive email communication from us on whether you were successful or not. We will not be providing any detailed feedback as to why you were successful or unsuccessful in your application.

All applications received by midnight (23:59) on April 11th 2021 will be considered.