Announcement of the winners of the first Joint Open Innovation Challenge of the Moonshots for Development partnership on AI for Climate Resilience in Rural Areas

The initiative, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, in partnership with CGIAR Accelerate for Impact Platform (A4IP), IDB Lab, the innovation lab of the Inter-American Development Bank, the Technology and Innovation Lab of the World Bank Group, and the WFP Innovation Accelerator is a collective effort to identify and scale AI-driven technologies to empower rural communities and help them adapt to climate change and build their resilience.

The call focused on three main areas: (i) agriculture, (ii) natural resource management, and (iii) disaster risk reduction. In addition to finding solutions to climate challenges in rural areas, the competition aimed to encourage a responsible and ethical use of AI and to foster co-financing and collaboration among investors, innovators, development practitioners, and rural people to nurture long-term climate resilience.

Throughout the programme, 237 startups applied, and nine of them were selected to receive training and establish essential network connections to enhance the chances at scalability of their innovative projects. Teams participated in an Onboarding Training Bootcamp, encompassing training sessions in Behavioral Design and Lean Startup offered by IFAD, Human-centered design by WFP, Scaling up by CGIAR, and Ethical and Trustworthy AI by IDB Lab and the World Bank. Additionally, teams also benefitted from technical support from the sponsoring agencies.