Incubator 2024 Year 5 Quarterly Q1 Report FINAL Redacted

The Incubator works with USAID headquarters and Missions to identify and engage new and local partners, provide training and capacity-strengthening assistance, and develop tools, resources, and models to advance NPI goals. The Partnerships Incubator provides five categories of service: research, technical assistance (TA), tools and resources, training and mentoring, and communications. These services aim to help partners identify their capacity to compete for and manage USAID awards, improve Agency resources for partners, and deliver training to enhance partner relationships with USAID. During the first quarter of the Partnerships Incubator's fifth year, the Web & Communications team continued to advance the flow of content on the News & Insights blog, surpassing 200 blog posts on the platform. The Incubator published monthly funding opportunities posts, which remain popular with readers on the platform, and supported USAID and external guest bloggers with the editing and review of six blogs. The Incubator also focused on supplying evergreen content, including "Getting the Most from USAID's Business Forecast" and "Understanding Indirect Cost Rates for U.S. Federal Awards." Additionally, the team posted the final two articles in the four-part El Salvador blog series that profiled local partners supported by the Incubator along with lessons on collaborating with USAID. As part of its scoping discussions, USAID/GenDev identified several video production assignments for the Incubator, along with an initial pipeline of communications products. The Incubator onboarded a Communications Liaison in November to work closely with the GenDev team. Video production activities include an overview of the Gender Equity and Equality Action (GEEA) Fund and an on-site storytelling video focused on child care to be filmed in South Africa at the start of Quarter 2. The Incubator also developed initial concepts for a GEEA Fund snapshot document with graphic design vendor TM Design. In Quarter 1, the Incubator served as a rapid-response service provider for the GenDev office and built a foundation of trust and quality for future products and initiatives in Quarter 2. The Partnerships Incubator has been tasked to support the overall content translation of the WorkwithUSAID.gov platform into three languages: Arabic, French, and Spanish. The team anticipates utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine translation while observing the Agency's AI Action Plan, which refers to recommendations by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) that have been endorsed by the U.S. Government and promote a human-centric approach to trustworthy AI. During Quarter 1, the Incubator put in place the foundations for its website translation effort, including engaging with colleagues from M/OAA and the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) around preferred translation platforms. The team anticipates utilizing AI and machine translation to translate millions of words from English, which will then be reviewed and refined by a team of human linguists to ensure the foreign-language content scheduled for publication is authoritative and easy to understand. The Partnerships Incubator has established a strong foundation for success in its fifth year, with a focus on innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. The team is motivated to deliver an extraordinary final project year, and the Incubator is uniquely positioned to positively influence Agency operations at the headquarters and Mission levels.