Silicon Valley Bootcamp Start-Ups Disrupt Global Hunger
In October 2019, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Innovation Accelerator is taking its innovation bootcamp on the road for the first time! WFP facilitators will meet early-stage innovation teams at Google Headquarters in San Francisco, California, and introduce them to innovation techniques such as lean start-up and human-centred design.
These humanitarian start-ups are WFP innovators who will showcase their ideas to international investors, corporate decision-makers and others from the Silicon Valley community, in an effort to receive funding and business support for their game-changing ideas. The goal is to resource transformative projects that can be implemented to disrupt hunger and help some of the people in greatest need.
Early-Stage Teams:
The bootcamp is where most early-stage innovators begin their journey from idea to prototyping. Over five days, innovation and humanitarian experts help start-up teams deep-dive challenges, ideate solutions and refine project plans. Bootcamps combine innovation techniques, such as human-centred design, with WFP’s deep field knowledge and operational excellence.
(gr)ATM: In response to the needs of the beneficiaries and the challenges faced by the government in distributing food grain subsidies, WFP India proposes to design, develop and pilot an automated multi-commodity grain dispensing and procurement solution. (gr)ATM is a kind of “grain ATM” and is proposed to be piloted in 15 locations.
GrainMate: Moisture can kill even a good harvest when grain goes into storage. GrainMate is an affordable moisture monitor to help reduce post-harvest losses. The $100 retail price and an innovative business model to trade grain products for the GrainMate tool creates accessibility for small-holder farmers.
HungerMapLive: WFP has developed a global hunger monitoring system to help assess, monitor and visualize the severity and scope of hunger in over 90 countries. HungerMapLIVE pulls together key metrics — such as food security information, weather, population size, conflict, hazards, nutrition information and macro-economic data — to predict and monitor the food security situation in near real-time. The resulting analysis is displayed on an interactive map that helps WFP staff, key decision-makers and the broader humanitarian community to make more informed and timely decisions on food security.
Fenik: Effective storage is a part of food security that is often dependent on technical infrastructures not available in under-developed or conflict-affected areas. Fenik is an effective, scalable, electricity-free, mobile refrigeration solution. By solely using water, Fenik creates low-cost, easily portable food coolersthat address the problem of food storage in extreme environments and places that have no electricity.
PDS Digital Identity: Iraq’s largest social safety net, PDS, distributes flour, rice, oil, and sugar, but its paper-based system results in errors and gaps in service delivery. PDS Digital Identity proposes to develop a “myPDS” mobile app to provide a digital identity for citizens, which can help prioritize aid delivery to the most vulnerable, and allow citizens to self-update personal information on Iraq’s national ID system, further providing potential for coordination in the administration of other social, health, or resource distributions.
Roambee: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of a group of things, each embedded with computing devices that allow these things to be connected together via the internet. At the local level at home, the IoT could be the computer, tv, lights, thermostat, watches, security system, GPSs, that are all connected and may be interrelated. Roambee is a global level IoT data company that allows the user to be in control of things on-demand — goods, equipment, or valuable assets — located indoors, outdoors, or in-transit. Roambee is impacting cost and risk for hundreds of enterprises in manufacturing, logistics and supply chain, transportation, finance, and aerospace.
Innovation Pitch Night
Watch the Innovation Pitch Night on WFP-USA’s Facebook page on Tuesday 15 October 2019 at 7pm PT.
Find out more about the innovation bootcamp in cooperation with WFP-USA in San Francisco.
WFP Innovation Accelerator
The WFP Innovation Accelerator identifies, nurtures and scales bold new solutions to end hunger. The Innovation Accelerator supports WFP entrepreneurs and start-ups through funding, hands-on technical support and access to WFP’s global operations. WFP believes that unprecedented advances in digital innovation, such as mobile technology, artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain, offer an opportunity to make a difference in the way it serves vulnerable communities across the world.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP staff, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP operations.
Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org
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