By J. K. Schmid, AFRO Staff

A Falls Church non-profit has won first place at the inaugural Innovate for Good Challenge.

The winner, Connect Our Kids, is developing data-driven intelligent software to enhance the abilities of social workers to place foster children in homes in a faster and scalable manner.

Connect Our Kids Chief Technology Officer, Travis Collins And Connect our Kids Co-founder and COO Jessica Stern

Connect Our Kidsโ€™s website and the press release announcing their victory claim there are over 400,000 children in the US foster care system.

โ€œThe Innovate for Good Challenge is intended to promote and heighten awareness of organizations that are catalyzing social change through new technology such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and/or extended reality,โ€ the press release reads. Innovate for Good is a contest sponsored by Independent Sector and Accenture.

Connect Our Kids has not launched a product at the time of this writing, but expects to launch from Virginia when the time comes.

โ€œThe financial award and technological support from Accenture is a game-changer for our young non-profit organization,โ€ said co-founder and COO Jessica Stern, in the same release. โ€œWe are a giant step closer to piloting our family connections tool across 5 states because of this incredible opportunity.โ€