Global innovators named finalists in QBE AcceliCITY Humanitarian Challenge
6 March 2026
QBE, Leading Cities, and Australian Red Cross Humanitech have named nine organisations from six countries as finalists in the QBE AcceliCITY Humanitarian Challenge, which creates a pathway moving humanitarian innovations from promising ideas into real-world, community-led impact.
These finalists advance to the final stage of the Challenge with the chance to secure funding of up to AUD $100,000 to pilot their solutions alongside Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners in Australia and Indonesia.
Over several months, 30 semi-finalists completed the Humanitech Innovation Curriculum, received expert mentoring from frontline humanitarian practitioners and worked directly with Australian Red Cross, the Global Disaster Preparedness Center and QBE teams across Asia-Pacific to develop and pressure-test their pilot proposals. The nine finalists represent the strongest solutions to emerge from that process.
QBE AcceliCITY Humanitarian Challenge finalists
The Challenge now enters its final phase, an intensive bootcamp series focused on community co-design, program integration and responsible, ethical innovation in humanitarian settings. Finalists will continue refining their pilot proposals ahead of the selection of two winning teams, who will receive funded pilot opportunities valued at up to AUD $100,000.
The finalists' solutions address critical needs across disaster preparedness, response and recovery, including translating complex climate risk data into actionable community insights, simplifying access to recovery support and enabling more effective coordination of emergency response or recovery efforts.
The pilots are designed to demonstrate how emerging technologies can integrate with existing humanitarian systems, support local decision-making and deliver meaningful, community-led outcomes.
"The quality of solutions we've seen through this Challenge reflects both the urgency of the problem and the ingenuity of the people working to solve it. These finalists have demonstrated not just innovative thinking, but the rigour and commitment needed to deliver real outcomes for communities on the frontline of climate change. We're proud to support this next stage of their journey."
"We've seen firsthand through this program how much these innovators have grown — not just in refining their solutions, but in understanding the complexity of humanitarian contexts and the communities they're designed to serve. The finalists have earned their place and we're excited to see these solutions move closer to real-world impact."
“This inaugural Humanitarian Challenge — now part of Leading Cities’ AcceliCITY program — shows what’s possible when QBE, Australian Red Cross, and Leading Cities combine our strengths. By opening the call globally, we attracted a record number of applicants and surfaced a stronger, more diverse field. And by tripling the cohort, we have equipped more teams with the Humanitech Innovation Curriculum and a clear pathway to pilot with Red Cross and Red Crescent partners. This is how impact scales: not through ideas alone, but through trusted partnerships — responsibly, ethically, and alongside the communities they’re here to serve.”
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