BE PART OF THE SOLUTION
An open challenge inspiring inclusive innovation for coastal communities to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Coastal communities across the globe are facing a number
of economic and social challenges, such as:
fading traditional industries,
lack of economic diversity,
loss of talent to urban centers.
Despite these challenges, there are many opportunities for coastal communities to utilize existing resources to build a more resilient economy. Untouched and beautiful nature attracts visitors and talent from across the globe while universities in and around coastal communities host national and international students and researchers with knowledge and the desire to innovate. The extensive fishing history, ocean knowledge, and physical resources of coastal communities should be utilized and combined with existing local support industries to create new opportunities.
We wish to inspire people to explore how emerging digital technologies leveraged together with ocean resources can help solve the challenges of coastal communities.
We are asking for your ideas on how to create value in new ways and solutions that can help reduce the growing digital gap between the cities and coastal communities.
To improve the livelihood of people living in coastal communities, solutions should focus on solving a coastal community need. We have identified four examples below, but you may also identify other resolution areas:
MOBILITY
HOUSING
ENERGY
NUTRITION
We encourage individuals and teams across the globe
to submit prototype solutions
that build synergies across the following:
Technology
Ocean Resources
Circular Economy Principles
The top innovators will receive a trip to Portugal including business mentoring and pitch training. The event will end with a “Shark Tank” where the finalists will pitch their solutions to angel investors. In addition, all finalists will receive seed funding to further develop their solutions.
WE BELIEVE COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION IS A CATALYST FOR IMPACT
Therefore, we created a workspace in Slack to bring together great minds from across the globe to solve coastal and ocean challenges.
Regardless of your background - we invite you to connect with like minded people, assist the entrepreneurs in their process, and make use of the community to move forward with your solutions!
We are teaming up with top universities and organizations to provide you with the necessary support to develop your solutions:
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