Deadline: 17-Feb-23
The UK-Latin America Net Zero and Resilience programme at Connected Places Catapult is inviting UK and Latin American SMEs with ideas to tackle some of the region’s climate challenges to apply to access support for the uptake of their solutions.
Latin America’s population is highly urbanised, with the majority living in cities, enabling economies of scale in resource conservation, decarbonisation (e.g. urban transport), energy efficiency, waste management, and circular economy initiatives. Latin American cities rank among the world’s most congested, polluted, and unequal. This environment presents an opportunity to deploy technologies at scale in a region of 600 million people.
The Catapult is interested in innovative solutions that can address challenges in the following cities:
- Buenos Aires, Argentina – Last-mile logistics.
- Optimise last mile logistics to meet increasing demand for deliveries and reduce the number of freight vehicles in the city centre.
- Campinas, Brazil – Mobility / Last-mile logistics.
- Enable data-driven transport planning and services to encourage a transition to alternative and sustainable transport methods.
- Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico – Mobility.
- Improve the public transport service by enabling data-driven solutions to provide real-time information.
- Monterrey, Mexico – Water resilience.
- Implement changes and solutions that improve the city’s water resilience.
Why apply?
At least eight UK and four Latin American companies will be selected to participate in this programme and benefit from the opportunity to:
- At the end of March, the selected companies will take part in the Net Zero Innovation Mission to Brazil, which includes:
- A programme of visits and meetings with relevant stakeholders in São Paulo, Campinas, and Porto Alegre that will provide detailed market knowledge, introductions, and insights. The programme will consist of matchmaking and networking events with local businesses to promote better mutual understanding and maximise opportunities.
- Participation in a showcase event during the South Summit and the opportunity to pitch your organisation’s solution to top international investors, leading corporations and other SMEs from across Latin America and beyond. The South Summit is one of the world’s leading innovation platforms and one of the most important networks of high-value connections in the innovation ecosystem to generate business and detect opportunities.
- Successful applicants will also have access to its SME support and upskilling programme pre-departure, which includes:
- Workshops with country experts from Department for International Trade (DIT) branches in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico
- Business of Cities briefings on additional opportunities in the Observer Cities of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago (Chile) and Porto Alegre (Brazil)
- Facilitated matchmaking support between UK and Latin American participants
- Pre-departure briefing session
- Membership of UK – Lat Am portfolio of innovative net-zero businesses that Connected Places Catapult is developing to promote to influencers, investors, potential customers, and decision-makers for future opportunities in this area. This portfolio will be hosted on the Connected Places Catapult website, disseminated to the UK and global networks, and promoted during the South Summit and through their partners ICLEI, Impact Hub, and the Department for International Trade.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligibility criteria for UK organisations.
- UK SMEs can apply for any of the four challenges. To be eligible to apply to participate in this programme, your organisation must:
- Be a registered UK company.
- Be willing to partner and collaborate with like-minded businesses and organisations in Latin America to work jointly on a product or service that is new or adapted to address one of the city-specific challenges identified above.
- Be export-ready, though no previous export experience is required.
- Additionally, the technology which your proposed solution (product or service) utilises should be:
- At Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 or above, i.e. already demonstrated in the UK. Technologies with lower TRLs may be considered with appropriate justification. NB: no funding will be provided as part of this competition for solution development.
- Novel, such that this competition presents an opportunity to adapt and test it on new markets.
- UK SMEs can apply for any of the four challenges. To be eligible to apply to participate in this programme, your organisation must:
- Eligibility criteria for Latin American organisations.
- Latin American SMEs can only apply for the challenge their organisation is registered in, for example, if you are registered in Mexico you can only apply to the Mexican challenges. To be eligible to apply to participate in this programme, your organisation must:
- Be a registered commercial business according to your national legislation.
- Be willing to partner and collaborate with like-minded businesses and organisations from the United Kingdom to jointly work on a product or service that is new or adapted to address one of the city-specific challenges identified above.
- Have experience and operational presence in the country of your selected challenge, although not necessarily in the participating cities.
- Be familiar with climate-related challenges in Latin America.
- Have credentials for promoting, developing, and/or implementing innovative actions and solutions that address them.
- Latin American SMEs can only apply for the challenge their organisation is registered in, for example, if you are registered in Mexico you can only apply to the Mexican challenges. To be eligible to apply to participate in this programme, your organisation must:
Deadlines
- Argentina and Brazil Challenges: Friday 17 February 2023.
- Mexico Challenges: Tuesday 28 February 2023.
For more information, visit Catapult.