Inside the PeaceTech Accelerator: Three Startups to Watch

By Regina Park

Each year, the U.S. Department of State, PeaceTech Labs, and other partners hold a Partners Practitioners Forum. The PeaceTech Accelerator accepts startups whose goals align with the seven “PeaceTech” themes.

Here are three upcoming initiatives that we’re particularly excited about:

Global Missing Children’s Network

In the U.S. alone, over 1,200 children go missing every day. Globally, the exact number is unknown because most countries do not keep exact statistics on missing children, and fewer than 30 nations have emergency child alert systems in place.

The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) has devised a database that aims to right these wrongs through facial recognition. The engine will look through a cloud-base compiled by 26 member countries for matches or clues to solve missing child cases more efficiently.

Director Caroline Humer of the Global Missing Children’s Center has an even loftier long-term goal in mind.

“We want to include missing children in the SDGs,” said Humer. “All the issues like child trafficking, forced labor, and sexual abuse are intertwined with missing children. If we want to address these issues, we need to address the starting point.”

SEaB Energy

It’s mobile, it’s renewable, and it can power a supermarket on food waste. SEaB Energy has created two compact systems that use a microbial process to turn food and organic wastes into energy which 1) is a clean source of power and 2) cuts down on waste transport.

The Flexibuster is specifically designed for food manufacturing and hospitality businesses, while the Muckbuster, which can process slurry waste, is preferable for agricultural use. Both systems can continuously produce between 8kWh-70kWh of electricity and 13–116kWh, depending on waste input.

The major hurdle in SEaB’s way is price. The initial investment necessary to set up either the Muckbuster or the Flexibuster is steep, but SEaB Energy is currently looking into grants and partnerships to offset costs.

After the first export to Portugal in 2015, SEaB has sold 12 more units. At the moment, two Flexibusters are being prepared to go to India, where they will churn out results in under six months.

Mark Labs

As technology advances, it generates huge amounts of vague data that seems impossible — yet very necessary — to quantify. Social impact is one of those supposedly incalculable metrics.

With Mark Labs’s new project, however, organizations can now see a clear ROI on their social campaigns that helps pinpoints exactly what works and what doesn’t work — all through the power of machine learning and AI algorithms.

Through a user-intuitive dashboard, social managers can set the definitions for success and what metrics the AI should use to organize data. Afterwards, the AI uses a Social Feedback Loop to report back in the form of graphs, charts, and easy to read widgets.

Data analysis metrics like the one Mark Labs is offering sounds like a dream come true for corporations who have been struggling to make sense out of outdated metrics reporting systems. But will Mark Labs live up to all it promises? Only time will tell.

Learn more about the PeaceTech Accelerator program here.