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Altera’s Submission to the Action for Women’s Health Initiative: A Missed Opportunity, But a Continued Commitment

Media Contact
  • Dr. Barbara Peterson
  • Executive Director, Altera
  • Phone: 509 969-3263
  • Mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,   www.altera-ed.org
  • Tiffany Coulson
  • Associate Director for Programming, Altera
  • Phone: 509 731-1960

Wapato, WA (July 14, 2025) Altera recently participated in the global Action for Women’s Health Initiative, a $250 million funding opportunity launched by the Melinda French Gates Foundation and facilitated by Pivotal. The initiative was designed to support organizations advancing women's mental and physical health, with awards ranging from $1 million to $5 million USD in flexible funding.

Although our submission received positive and constructive feedback during the Participatory Review phase, it was not among those selected to move forward. This outcome, while disappointing, has only strengthened our resolve to pursue the work we proposed in our grant application.

The Proposal: Empowering Women Through Literacy and Health Education

At the heart of our proposal is a simple, powerful idea:

Mothers make vital decisions every day that affects their families’ health. Those decisions deserve to be well-informed.

Too often, women in under-resourced regions lack the education and access necessary to obtain even basic health information. To address this gap, Altera has developed a mobile-first solution: a solar-powered cellphone platform delivering AI-powered voice instruction in 144 indigenous and formal languages.

This platform provides:

  • Early childhood and basic literacy education in the mother’s native language
  • Language and literacy instruction provided simultaneously to the mother.
  • Culturally contextualized health guidance to help women safeguard their families
  • A low-cost, scalable model suitable for deployment in diverse, underserved regions

What We Learned and What’s Next

The review process reaffirmed the relevance and the value of our innovation. The grant reviewers recognized the broad potential that our approach has for improving health outcomes through education, our deep commitment to equity, and the feasibility and scalability that our use of AI makes possible. Altera remains fully committed to this initiative and is actively:

  • Seeking technology and AI partners to strengthen delivery and infrastructure
  • Building relationships with local and global implementers to pilot and scale the model
  • Engaging with foundations that share our commitment to women’s empowerment, health equity, and early education
Altera conducts our work on traditional lands of the Wanapum, Yakama, Colville and Quinalt People past and present. We honor the land itself and its multi-generational stewards who demonstrate in perpetuity a commitment to building relationships with Indigenous people for a positive future in Washington State and the entire region.