The planet is facing unprecedented challenges in terms of climate change, exposure of vulnerabilities in value chains, food insecurity, among others. New innovation for nature positive agriculture is more needed than ever. Early-stage companies with technologies, products, and services relevant for building climate resilience in low and middle-income countries are increasingly coming to the fore. However, due to gaps in the innovation ecosystem, they typically lack adequate access to finance and the skills required to bring their products to markets and reach an investment ready stage. To address these gaps and provide the space needed, GRP is partnering with Shockwave, the Global Innovation Fund and UNDP’s Innovation Small Grant Aggregator Platform (ISGAP) to catalyze more innovation and more entrepreneurs into building climate resilience.
The event will showcase the growing market of companies offering solutions for climate adaptation and resilience in low and middle-income countries. Companies and projects that have been supported by GRP, ISGAP and GIF will showcase their solutions and how they scaled. Panel discussion will center how they successfully scaled, and what their main challenges have been.
GRP and Shockwave will also launch the Resilient Agriculture Innovations for Nature (RAIN) challenge during this session.
Agenda:
Welcome: Jesper Hörnberg, Head of Innovation and Scaling, GRP
Panel discussion on Seeds to Scale:
Representative from farmBetter
Jop Blom, CleantechHUB
Babban Gona
Panel disccusion responding to challenges presented in first panel:
Cibele Queiroz, Researcher, GRP and Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC)
Chongguang YU, UNDP ISGAP
Alis Zwane, CEO, Global Innovation Fund
Launch of RAIN Challenge by Paul Traina, Shockwave Foundation
Closing remarks: Jesper Hornberg
Session objectives:
- Showcase the journey new innovations take to turn into something scalable and investable/bankable,
- Showcase how innovation is a necessity in developing solutions in the field of adaptation and resilience in low and middle-income countries, helping them to attract interest and support from investors and other organizations,
- Stimulate discussion on how the international community can support and strengthen the ecosystems that are enabling the growth of the adaptation economy worldwide.
- Launch of the RAIN Challenge