Deadline: 30 June 2020
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has launched a Global Call for “Innovative Ideas and Technologies vs. COVID-19 and beyond”, to cope with the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 in developing countries and economies in transition, and their respective needs in the transition to post-crisis socioeconomic realities in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The Global Call offers an opportunity at international level to identify and promote innovative solutions contributing to tackle COVID-19 effects in developing countries and make their economies more resilient, in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This call seeks to create a virtuous cycle of connections between the private, academic, financial, and institutional world to fight COVID-19 and lay the foundations for the recovery.
The initiative, inspired by ITPO Italy, is promoted by UNIDO – United Nations Industrial Development Organization – through its network of ITPOs, Investment and Technology Promotion Offices around the world. Furthermore, it offers the opportunity to the winners to present their own innovative ideas and technologies to potential partners in the UNIDO network and to benefit from ad hoc promotional and networking support provided by the organization.
Objectives
- The Global call has the objective to identify and promote the best innovative ideas and technologies to respond to the COVID-19 emergency and its aftermath that could be successfully applied in Developing Countries (DCs).
Priority Areas
Specifically, priority will be given to the following 4 strategic categories:
- Health Emergencies
- Tele medicine
- Biotechnologies and digital health
- Prevention and control
- Energy and Environment
- Medical waste management and recycling
- Renewable energy for health care
- Water management
- Food and Agriculture
- Smart food logistic distribution
- Urban farming
- Inclusive local market ecosystem.
- Resilient Industries and Infrastructure
- Manufacturing of protective and medical equipment
- Distributed networks and fabrication laboratories
- New organizational models.
Reward Criteria
- Winners will be contacted in the days following the date of closure of the call for proposals and invited to take part to the Award Ceremony in live streaming scheduled on 14 July 2020 in compliance with the ongoing measures taken worldwide to prevent the spread of the virus.
- The winners will also be offered the following services:
- Opportunity to participate as a keynote speaker and guest of honor at the final Award Ceremony to be virtually organized by UNIDO on 14 July 2020;
- Realization of an ad hoc web page on the winner innovative idea and / or technology within the UNIDO’s institutional website and assistance in defining a promotional strategy;
- Opportunity to make use of an exhibition pass and booth space at EuroScience Open Forum 2020 (ESOF2020) to be held in September 2020 in Trieste (Italy);
- Showcase of winning proposals at Expo Dubai to be held in 2021;
- Honest brokering services to access, through ad hoc promotional activities, to the worldwide UNIDO and ITPOs network with the aim to guarantee the maximum visibility to the winner proposal and foster the conclusion of international technical, financial and academic partnerships;
- Advisory and mentorship services concerning the awarded project.
Eligibility Criteria
The proposal can be submitted by:
- Micro, small, medium, and large companies;
- Startups;
- Research centers, incubators, technology transfer offices, university spin-offs, and academia;
- Public-Private Partnerships;
- Associations, business consortia and company networks, NGOs, private foundations.
- The organizers encourage the participation of proposal at any level of development, from early stage ideas to scaled up projects, but also innovative technologies under testing and evidence collection.
For more information, visit https://www.unido.org/global-call-itpos