Deadline: 31-Jul-21
The Financial Times and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, are delighted to announce that The Transformational Business Awards 2021 are now open for entries, to all financial and non-financial private sector organizations, as well as NGOs that can meet the judging criteria.
The aim is to recognise, showcase and reward private sector innovation, impact, replicability, financial viability and sustainability across a number of key areas. The emphasis this year is on addressing climate change, harnessing disruptive technologies and business models to achieve impact and scale, and achieving best practice in impact and gender-lens investing.
Projects or transactions must have passed the implementation stage and result in measurable impact. Only initiatives that have been implemented since 2015, and have annual revenues of at least US$5 million, will be eligible.
Award Categories
- Urban Infrastructure
- This award recognises initiatives that leverage private sector expertise and finance, including public-private partnerships, and are using new technologies to build and modernise critical infrastructure, decarbonise mobility networks, accelerate adoption of clean energy, develop scalable, practical green building projects, improve waste management, and generally boost environmental resilience. Special attention will be given to entries that promote inclusion and affordability for low-income residents.
- Sustainable Supply Chains
- This award recognises innovative solutions that are having a measurable impact on more than one component of a supply chain and are replicable across different geographies and sectors. Special attention will be given to entries that promote workforce inclusion, particularly in emerging markets of origin.
- Climate-Smart Agriculture
- This award recognises innovative, high-quality solutions that advance climate-smart agriculture practices and investment in emerging markets, with special attention given to scalable solutions and investments that are technology- or business model-driven and can be applied by smallholder farmers. Entries that offer scalable, sustainable solutions for reducing food losses while also promoting workforce capacity building and inclusion are encouraged.
- Post-Secondary Education, Employability and Workforce Skills
- This award recognises tech-enabled, scalable solutions for technical and digital skills acquisition and certification, platforms for efficient recruiting and workforce/talent management, and novel public-private partnerships for workforce skilling.
- Healthcare Access, Affordability and Quality
- This award recognises health tech solutions that have demonstrated an ability to scale commercially while delivering demonstrated improvements in access, affordability and/or quality of healthcare in emerging markets.
- Impact Investing
- This award recognises impact investing funds that demonstrate innovation, scalability and measured impact in their operations. Special attention will be given to innovation in the fund manager’s approach to identifying, nurturing and scaling-up impact opportunities; the expected and realised impact results and financial returns; and the quality of impact leadership, management, measurement and reporting, taking as reference recognised industry standards.
- Gender-Lens Finance
- This award recognises innovative, high-quality financial solutions for women and women-led businesses in developing economies, with special attention given to sectors and segments in which such businesses are traditionally underserved.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Transformational Business Awards are open to all financial and non-financial private sector organisations, as well as NGOs that can meet the judging criteria.
For more information, visit https://transformationalbusiness.live.ft.com/home