 Welcome to the Circular Accelerator 2023 Closing Showcase. I'm your host, Immanuella Orsini, broadcasting to you live from the World Economic Forum headquarters in Geneva. Now, I'm thrilled to be here with you to talk about some of the pioneering circular economy entrepreneurs who have completed the Circular Accelerator program, an initiative led by Accenture in partnership with Anglo-American, AWS, Ecolab, and the World Economic Forum's innovation platform, Uplink. Now, Uplink is a platform hosting innovation challenges, looking for early-stage solutions, tackling some of the biggest challenges we face across the world, from water scarcity, food insecurity, deforestation, and how to make our world more sustainable by driving a circular economy. Now, last fall, Uplink launched the Circular Accelerator 23 Challenge, a search for the most promising circular economy solutions from around the globe. And over the last six months, the Circular's program has been working with 16 trailblazing innovators, providing them with networking opportunities, access to investors and advisors, as well as digital media visibility via Uplink and the World Economic Forum. Now, today, you'll hear more about some of these circular economy top innovators and their solutions, from transforming old clothes into fragrances to creating smart packaging labels in order to reduce food waste, and many more. We'll also hear from some alumni members of the program and learn more about how being a part of the Circulars has helped them get to where they are now. And finally, we'll speak with industry experts to learn more about the current landscape of the circular economy and what's next for its future. But first, let's hear from Kathleen O'Reilly from Accenture. Thank you, Emanguella. I am delighted to be here today to celebrate our fantastic cohort of circular innovators. I want to start by congratulating all 16 startups for your amazing successes and achievements to date, and especially over these past few months. You have been and continue to be a constant inspiration to all of us as you work to advance the transition to a circular economy. Today marks the completion of the third year of the Circulars Accelerator. And as I reflect on the 50 circular startups we have supported to date and the impact we've had, I am reminded of how critical the work we are doing is. The sustainability challenges businesses and society are faced with often seem overwhelming, but they also provide us all with an unprecedented opportunity. For businesses, this is an opportunity to reinvent themselves and become more relevant, resilient, and restorative in the face of the current climate where businesses are faced with increasing pressure and sustainable progress is stalling. Ultimately, to shift the course of business and reinvent for a sustainable future, we need to transform systems, and this must be driven by circular economy principles, innovation, and increased collaboration across the ecosystem. Based on what I have seen as part of the Circulars Accelerator this year and in previous years, I'm extremely optimistic and hopeful for the future. The 50 startups we have supported to date are already reinventing the way we do business, and with the support of the program, they are unlocking new opportunities and partnership models to scale for rapid transformation. At Accenture, we are committed to advancing the circular economy to build a sustainable future, and the Circulars Accelerator is critical to this vision. As of today, five of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached largely due to the linear take, make, waste economy. The circular economy can help us reinvent new avenues for growth, once it can enable both net-zero and nature-positive solutions and restore ecosystems. By supporting circular startups and scaling their solutions and bringing together the circular ecosystem, we are accelerating action to address our biggest sustainability challenges. Once again, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Cohort 2023. I wish you all the best on your continued journeys. I would also like to thank our partners, Anglo-American, EcoLab, AWS, and the World Economic Forum for their continued support and cooperation. Last but not least, thank you to our network of circular supporters, which includes all of our advisors, mentors, champions, and investors. To the entire Circulars Accelerator ecosystem, the program would not be the same without your engagement and commitment to building a better future. Back to you, Immanuel. Thank you so much for your inspiring remarks, Kathleen. And now I'm thrilled to introduce to you three top innovators from this year's Circulars Accelerator Cohort to hear more about their sustainable solutions and their impressions over the past six months. Welcome, Catherine Shane, founder and CEO of CIRT, joining us just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Victoria Canar, co-founder and CEO of Refresh Global based in Germany and Israel. And Deepak Rajmahan, founder and CEO of GreenPod Labs, joining us from the south of India. Thank you so much to all three of you for being here today. Now I want to start with each one of you. I want you to each tell me what your innovation is, what your exciting innovation is, and what was the inspiration behind starting your company. So, Vika, let's start with you. Tell us about Refresh Global. Okay, thank you so much, First of all, for the opportunity to speak. I'm extremely excited to be here and I can't believe that the program is almost over. So yeah, our journey was of course a bit longer than just the program. We started out actually quite a while ago working in the fashion industry. The biggest stage of the world that you can imagine doing fashion shows, producing clothes, working with big brands. And what we realized that the problem is so huge because nobody actually sees the ugly side. I will put it like this, what happens after the show is over. And so my co-founder and I, we decided that we want to do something about it. We want to really look at this backside and actually create something beautiful and highly available from it. Because today most of it goes to landfill, being insinuated or being shipped somewhere else to continue polluting there. And so we brought together really some of the best minds in different disciplines. We decided that circle economy can really be achieved if you can work with people that are not necessarily from industry because they can come with different ideas. So what we see here is actually a far, a far fetch from the fashion shows and the fashion clothes we have produced. Today became a company which takes the textile waste and completely, completely changes it and processes it from in newer materials which then can be used in different industries. And the ultimate goal is to create the solution that can be used locally because waste of textiles is everywhere where there are people. Yeah, and it's super important. As you said, fashion is one of the biggest polluters in the world. So it's super important that you've found this technology to transform these old textiles, turning it into different products like fragrances and upholstery for cars as well, I think. So great work. Thank you so much. Now, Catherine, over to you. Tell us more about CIRT and what you do at your company. Yeah, thanks. I'm excited to be here. Again, I'm Kat Shane, co-founder and CEO of CIRT. And CIRT is unlocking packaging's potential for good. So we have a B2B SaaS platform with smart labeling technology and APIs that allow for organizations to collaborate and organize information about products and packaging across their footprint. So this is helping with supply chain efficiencies, reducing waste and ESG tracking. One of our most impressive attributes is that we can answer, can I recycle this anywhere in the world? So most materials end up in landfills, the environment or our ocean. And actually my co-founder and I studied this for a long time. We were in landfills and dump sites and doing beach cleanups around the world and studying how plastic pollution affects our environment. And simultaneously looking into circular materials management. So out of this work CIRT was born and we were able to bring a really sophisticated software to the industry so that organizations can collaborate on this kind of information and really start to track materials and where they go. So I'm excited to be here to close out the circulars with this amazing cohort and on this panel. So thanks. Thank you so much, Kat. It's definitely important. I think a lot of people don't know where to recycle, how to recycle their waste. So great innovation. Thank you so much. And now over to Deepak. Tell us about Green Pod Labs and what inspired you to start your startup? Thank you so much. Thank you for this opportunity. Really appreciate it being here. So Green Pod Labs, our primary objective is to minimize food bases and food losses in developing countries. If you look at developed countries and developing countries about 40% of fresh produce is lost before each is a consumer in developing countries. In developed countries in the US and Europe about 35% is lost after each is a consumer. It's a lack of infrastructure in developing countries where the losses are happening. That's what we're trying to solve. So we've developed a biotechnology based active packaging very similar to the one we're importing. These sachets would help extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables during transport and storage at ambient temperatures. We use a science called defense mechanism which is a immune system within the fruit and vegetable which helps extend the shelf life during transport and storage. We're trying to replace cold storage and cold supply chain with a product of what we have developed. Super excited to be here. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. Okay, amazing. That's really exciting to see. I think it's super important as you said food waste is a huge issue. So I think anyone could use those sachets at home that would be very, very helpful. So now let's go and talk a bit more about the program. Vika, what were some of the biggest highlights from the past six months? Well, of course, one of the biggest highlights was the video that was created to sometimes it's actually someone else can portray it better than you do it because the problem is so complex and you sometimes need more than just a few words to really describe it and make people understand. So we were so thankful that there was a team that helped us actually and created this beautiful message and portrayed that we can now show it around the world and we got an overwhelming feedback about that from people all over and it really helped put us on the map and also not less important put this big huge problem on the map. Other than that, I think it was just amazing to see people from all over the world working on this and I think we sometimes tend to forget that it's not just in Europe where people are aware of this problem. It's really everybody is talking and trying to work on approaches how to make our economy circular and it's really great that we could meet people from literature around the world who are thinking about similar problems as ours is us. Amazing, and Kat, can you tell us about your time with the circulars and what did you learn from your other cohort members? Yeah, well, I definitely want to start with the different programming that was given during the circulars was really helpful for us. So hopefully it was also helpful for our cohort members. One of the most interesting and revealing ones was around tri-sector innovation. So we've been thinking about that for a while on how to bring together partners like nonprofits and government agencies. And so that was something that we took and are going to make it a strategy going forward. And from our interactions with the other cohort members, we learned that we weren't alone. Solving complex problems is difficult. It's challenging and having a support system is definitely key. And so I think that the circulars provides that through this program. And in talking with Sierra from Rebundle, it actually helped us frame how we would start to tackle materials other than packaging. So we really saw a potential to collaborate with her. So you might see a Rebundle CERT collab coming out soon. So we're excited to be able to continue to interact with the different cohort members. Oh, that's so great to hear. Like that's really exciting to hear that there's different collaborations happening within the cohort. So super exciting. And now Deepak, tell us about how the Circulos helps you accelerate your scaling journey and what's next for your company? Yeah, for sure. So the program was well thought out from all different angles to accelerate a company. And we were at the point where we completed our R&B extensively and we were working towards the scale of our product and expanding our commercial approach to the customers. So we would rightly push it to access all the resources what was provided through the program and also like maximize the interaction with the mentors. I think a couple of things which really stood out, the access to excellent mentors, both from Equalab and also from Accenture perspective really transformed our approach towards commercialization. And also like during the program, interacting with other cohort members gave a different perspective on the problems that we were solving. It's all about like getting new frameworks and new top process that really accelerated our opportunity. So we were just early stages of commercializing product. Now we have already commercialized two products. We work with about like 200 plus customers. It's just scaling up. So really, really happy that we got the opportunity to interact with several other entrepreneurs and mentors. It definitely helped us scale faster. All right, that's amazing. That's really exciting to hear. Thank you all so much for being here today and best of luck for the future of your companies. Wish you all the best. Now let's hear from a few of the other members of cohort 23 on their highlights from the past six months. The highlight of the circular accelerator program for me is the combination of tailored education, mentorship and networking opportunities specific to the circular economy space. We gain knowledge, skills, connections and validation that are crucial for our growth and success in the circular economy sector. Through the workshops I learned with Accenture to have a better storytelling of the challenges we want to address with different audiences. Mainly to the business to business audience which is so important for our business. Also, how to plan better our actions and how to sell to the companies in a more structured way. One of the many great things we learned while working with excellent members of the circular economy is that we all face similar challenges such as how we frame value, looking at how we embrace change collectively and of course, circular logistics. All in all, it provides hope that if we work together impact will continue to happen. I think that the main benefit is the type and level of contact that you make through the WEF and through the circulars. I think the way that they connect you with companies is fantastic and they're connecting with people that can actually make a decision. There's also a good level of coaching that goes on prior to those meetings which I think is invaluable. And I think that others are business have benefited from it because our pipeline has increased and we've certainly widened our network with really serious people. In the last three months, we have scaled our business by 1.4x. We have increased our brand visibility as well due to this platform. We have got enough intent, letters across the globe from the US markets, UAE market, Canada, UK market to check out this technology and decentralize in the specific region. Given that I work in the circular economy every single day and focus a lot on that, sometimes I worry that I have an artificial hopefulness for the future of the world and circular economy. But being involved in the circular accelerator has reminded me that there are brilliant, skilled people across the world with different ideas to tackle so many of the problems that we need to that the circular accelerator has reminded me that it isn't an artificial hopefulness, that there are really wonderful and brilliant people working on all of these problems. My hope is that this incredible program, The Circulars, is shining a light on what it is we do and moving the needle on what's common knowledge in business. After meeting all of the other cohort members, I am incredibly invigorated and excited about what the future holds. So exciting to see the highlights and the learnings. Congrats again to the entire cohort for completing this program. Now, let's meet another top innovator from the current cohort, as well as two circular alumni to hear about their progress since they first became involved with the program. Now, I'm delighted to introduce Jackson Alvarez, co-founder and co-CEO of Evo Electric, joining us from Los Angeles, California. Natasha Frank, founder and CEO of Eon, joining us from New York City. And Ibrahim Magari Amoudou, founder and CEO of Rice Africa, joining us from Lagos, Nigeria. Thank you so much for being here with me today. It's really exciting to see you again, Natasha and Ibrahim and Jackson. I'm actually meeting you for the first time virtually. So thanks so much to all of you for being here. Now, Natasha, I wanna start with you. Let's talk a bit about Eon. So Eon has created digital IDs to track clothes throughout their entire life cycle to help companies resale their products as well as make them more traceable. So you were a part of cohort 2021 and you've achieved some amazing milestones since, including partnerships with luxury brands like Chloe to help them build a more circular economy. So can you talk about how the program has helped you get to where you are now? Yeah, thank you so much and thank you to the program. It's been an incredible journey. I'd say the biggest thing you can ask for as an innovator is for your solution to go from innovation to kind of a new normal and a new baseline. And I think what we've seen throughout the course of our participation in the Circularist Program is the concept of digital ID, also known as digital product passport, go from being something that was innovative and quite next-gen to something that is now expected to be a new normal across the fashion and retail industry. It will be expected that every physical product have a unique ID, that those products are traceable, that those products are resellable. And ultimately within the next few years, actually there will be legislation across the EU that mandates every item have a digital ID. So I think the work with the Circulers and our work at Eon has helped accelerate that transition and move innovation into a new normal. So thank you. Oh, that's amazing. And can you talk a bit about what parts of the program helped you get to where you are now? I'd say with any major systems changed, it requires cross-industry collaboration, it requires stakeholder education, and it requires a network within industry and beyond to sort of disseminate the ideas and solutions. And I'd say the Circulers program offered us that within fashion retail and also across other industry sectors that we're now expanding into. Exciting. Now over to Ibrahim, let's talk about Rice Africa. So Rice Africa is boosting harvest productivity by helping farmers access equipment, agricultural data in Nigeria. So you were part of cohort 2022. Tell us a bit about how Rice Africa has grown over the past year and what are some of the projects you're working on now? Thank you, Emanuella. And thank you for inviting me and congratulations to these amazing innovators that we've seen so far. And like I've always been saying, the Circulers accelerator program has escalated our brand to a global brand. We started with just a small company in Nigeria. It has double our workforce. We've expanded to the East African coast. We are currently in two African countries, Nigeria and Tanzania, we are switching on Rwanda at the end of the year. And it has been an amazing ride. And so far through the exposure of the circular accelerators and the system thinking that come with it, we've structured our operations. So far we've invested over 5,400 hectares. We have saved over 15 million kilogram of grains in Africa. And this 50 million kilograms has added, I mean it can feed 50 million people more in a continent that according to the UN FAO, we are facing a hunger crisis with almost 400 million people facing severe hunger. We feel this achievement wouldn't have been possible without the exposure and the partnership that came with the circular program, especially all the sessions, the masterclasses, the networking and it has been so amazing. Currently we're working on transiting from just a Havesta hiring service provider to a full aggregate optimization service provider. During the circular's program in last year, we were exposed to see all the benefits in the value chain. We've developed a platform called Farm Easy, which is basically like an Uber for small hold of farmers that we can connect them to not just Havesta services that we started with, we're not connecting them to lamp preparation equipment, we're connecting them to high yielding seed, we're connecting them to environmentally friendly chemicals, we're connecting them to free extension services. And at the end of the day, we're connecting them to a structured market. So this is all courtesy of what we've experienced and what the circular program has exposed us to. Thank you. Wow, that's incredible impact, really, really, really great to hear. Congrats, Ibrahim. Now, Jackson, I wanna talk to you about EVO Electric. So you're part of the current cohort and EVO Electric transforms old trucks into 100% electric feet by connecting them to the cloud and providing live insights into their operation. So what opportunities has the program presented you with so far? And what's next for EVO Electric? Yes, thank you very much for having us today. And this program, just when I heard what everybody's saying, it's been outstanding and amazing. One of the key things that I wanted from this program is that how tailored it's been. It's really looking at what are our needs and how can they connect us to individuals and entities that can help advance our mission. So as we're helping to carbonize the transportation by leveraging circular economy principles and merging with advanced EV technology, we need partners that are both in the technology side but also on the circular side. So from a technology side, we've been connected, for example, with AWS where we're looking and as well as Accenture that are helping us look at different ways that we can leverage data so that we can do battery, paper, use model for a spotter or business model to lower the upfront cost. We have also learned on the circular side about the circular car initiative, which is a trend that is going on in the automotive space. And a lot of what we're working on is actually part of those trends. So there's a bigger support system that we realize that can help us not reinvent the wheel of what's happening and lean on that. And something else that is important to us is figuring out financing. Financing for use assets or assets that are re-manufactured is not necessarily very straightforward, but there's a lot of different examples in different sectors, the industrial sectors that can help us connect some dots on how these vehicles and batteries can be financed to scale our solution and our impact. And the takeaway for that is that we're now exiting the pilot stage of our company and entering the commercialization stage. That means we're working on deploying 100 vehicles over the next year and aiming to get to 10,000 a year over the next five years. To do that, it's one of the critical things we're doing is leveraging the existing space equipment and the people that are already servicing commercial vehicles worldwide so that we don't have to build new plans and take new resources. But we can also be circular on how this is deployed by leveraging those facilities, those people and transitioning those skillsets to now the new green economy. So that's what we're working on. Okay, exciting. Lots of things to look forward to. So congrats, Jackson. Now, I want to go to Natasha and Ibrahim, you are former alumni, you're former Circular's cohort members. What advice would you give to Jackson and actually the other current cohort members now that they're finishing the program? Natasha, start with you. Oh my God. Don't finish the program, you would keep going. I'd say we keep in touch with a lot of the mentors and team members that we met. We also keep in touch with the other startups and we keep in touch with the Accenture team because as we've started to more commercialize and work on enterprise implementations with a lot of global brands and retailers, the Accenture team has been a really valuable partner in that. And Ibrahim, what advice would you give? Yeah, I mean, they should keep learning. I mean, the moment you stop learning, you start dying. So keep learning, keep taking advantage of the network that you've built so far and this is what I've been doing personally and as an organization. Keep learning, keep reaching out and explore live with that multidisciplinary approach. Try and understand what works in one industry, partner with the members of your cohort and also know that, I mean, impact is the new language of business. So keep networking. Impact is the new language. Definitely, impact is the new language. Very important. Last question for Jackson. What advice would you give to future cohort members that are maybe watching this and they would like to apply? Yeah, some of the key, one of the key things I would mention is to engage as many of your team members as possible with the larger Secular Accelerator because the Seculars are masters are at connecting. So their network is extremely broad with all the partnerships that are involved. So you really get what you put into it and then the more engaged and the more people you can get involved, the more you can get out of it. So this is an outstanding and amazing program that really drives and moves the needle for the business. All right, well, I wanna thank you all for being here with me today and really best of luck for the future. I hope we can speak again and hear more about your impact. So thank you, Natasha and thank you, Jackson. Thank you, Ibrahim, for your input. And now I'm happy to introduce actually another alumni member of the Circular Accelerator from Cohort 2022 who is in the studio with me here today in Geneva. Kristin Kagesu is the co-founder of Sathi, a company that makes biodegradable menstrual pads out of banana fibers in India. Welcome, Kristin. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you in the studio physically. So why don't you inform the audience? Tell us a bit more about Sathi pads. What was the inspiration behind starting your organization? Tell us more about it. Yeah, so we started Sathi initially to address lack of access to menstrual products, but we also wanted to do it in a sustainable way. In India, only 36% of women have access to menstrual products. So the majority of women that don't have access are mostly in rural areas. And because there's also then a lack of waste infrastructure, we were also thinking, how can we provide a single-use product in these areas with lack of waste infrastructure and yet not have any other solution stuff cycles? And yeah, it seems like a pretty simple solution, making biodegradable menstrual sanitary products. Why do you think that hasn't been done before? And how are you doing it differently? A number of different reasons, but I think part of it definitely is the supply chain. So we're using an agri-waste fiber, and we're converting it into an absorbent. That's our special sauce, if you will. But basically, being able to do that at scale, I think not only that part, but replacing every other layer of the pad for an established company, they have to redo quite a lot of different elements of the way they do business today. Whereas because we have nothing anyway, we had to start from scratch. So we were able to develop each of those steps ourselves. And how has Saffi grown over the past year since finishing the program? And what were some of the biggest challenges you faced? Yeah, so since last year, actually, we have a couple of exciting things that we've been doing. So one is that we've also added a couple new products to our lineup. We have a couple of new distribution channels. When we started Saffi, we actually launched our One Million Pads initiative. And as of last year, we've distributed One Million Sanitary Pads. So this year, we've launched our 10 million sanitary pads initiative. And our last kind of milestone is that we've also made some more progress on our plastic avoidance program as well. OK, amazing. And what were some of the biggest takeaways and learnings from the program that you feel benefited and impacted your company's growth so far? I think we really got to explore more about how our plastic avoidance program would be perceived by companies. That was something we really wanted to take away from the sessions and get a lot of feedback on. A couple other things were that we had access to the World Economic Forum, the uplink community. And we actually had an opportunity to do a workshop here today with staff here at the World Economic Forum. So we're really excited about that. And we had an opportunity to write about our plastic avoidance program on the World Economic Forum website. So I think all of these have really raised the bar in terms of having more companies actually interested in talking to us about this program. Great. So lots of visibility, global visibility. And you've recently got some funding. Yeah, would you like to talk about that and talk about maybe what are the biggest milestones that you've achieved? Yeah, so we're currently raising some funding. So about $1.5 million. And of that, we've already raised about $400,000. And that's from a couple of different impact-oriented investors and ocean plastic-oriented investors as well. OK, amazing. And do you have any final words of advice for critical core members that are completing the program? I think definitely it's to, I think, the previous one that I have already mentioned. But to keep in touch, we really benefited from also learning more about the different ways that other companies are approaching kind of corporate partnerships and how they're kind of navigating that relationship as well. So I think keeping in touch, asking a lot of questions and seeing what opportunities you can take advantage of there. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here physically. And best of luck for the future of Sati. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now let's hear some remarks from our program partners Ecolab, Anglo-American and AWS, who have provided invaluable support over the past six months to our innovators in the program. The circular economy will be key to solving our challenges and will enable us to unlock the true value of resources, human ingenuity, and technological capabilities. But time's running out. We now have an urgency to raise the collective ambition to accelerate the circular transformation at scale. At Anglo-American, our purpose is to reimagine mining to improve people's lives. To achieve this, we're moving towards a net zero future underpinned by, among others, circular economy principles. We know we cannot solve global challenges alone. Cutting edge innovation combined with collective action will be critical to accelerate the global transition to circularity and build a more sustainable future. Our commitment and the work that we've done with the circulars has been a huge contributor to our work in this space because it's driven our ability to connect to the circular economy ecosystem and thereby also help to drive change at scale. At Ecolab, the world's water, hygiene, and infection prevention company, we are focused on protecting people and the resources vital to life. Whether we are advancing food safety, maintaining clean and safe environments, or optimizing water and energy use, our longstanding commitment to the circulars is core to who we are as a company. It is driven by our ambition to connect the circular economy ecosystem, drive change at scale, and create a lasting positive impact. On behalf of myself and the team of AWS, a huge congratulations to the 2023 Circular School Board. Even the current sustainability challenges, your solutions help accelerate the transition to a circular economy. We are incredibly proud of the 2023 Circular Accelerator cohort and congratulate them on their progress and success. I want to congratulate that cohort of 2023 of the Circular Accelerator. They truly represent the latest innovations across the value chain of the circular economy and their testament to human and business ingenuity that allows us to rethink how our economy and societies actually work. We must meet this moment to catalyze sustainable growth and drive collaboration to support the lives of humans, other species, and the environment. We're looking forward to following their journeys going forward. In fact, we're working with some of the representatives of previous year's cohorts and support them as they scale. So all the best for the future. Huge congrats again. Continue to drive your disruptive impact for a transition towards a more circular economy. Thank you again to our partners for the invaluable support. And now it's time for our final segment of the day. Joining me to talk more about the current and future state of the circular economy industry is Wesley Spindler, Sustainability Strategy Director and Global Circular Economy Lead at Accenture, and Fernando Gomez, Head of Resource Systems and Resilience at the Center of Nature and Climate here at the World Economic Forum. Thank you both for being here. Now, Wesley, let's start with you. Thank you. This is the third year of the circular's accelerator. So since 2021, the program has supported 50 circular startups. What are some of your reflections from this last year and how will this influence what's next for the program? Thanks, Emanuella. It's so great to be here and hear all of the amazing stories today and just a small reflection of what we've been able to achieve. And as you said, we've been able to work with 50 startups since the start of the program over three years ago. And it's so incredible to see the change that they've been able to make as well as the change that we've seen with the 16 incredible innovators and pioneers in the 2023 cohort. I've been delighted to see the progress that you've already made. So a big congratulations to all of you. And I'm looking forward to seeing your continued growth and impact, which I know you will all achieve. And since our first cohort in 2021, I'm so impressed by the rate at which the circular innovations and solutions have really expanded across industries, across value chains, which I think is really reflected in the diversity of the startups we've had the privilege to support. Even through the event today, you've seen some of that diversity, including range of startups like Machine Compare in the UK who enables industrial manufacturers to trade spare parts, to Mandela's Energy in Uganda who provide electricity from agricultural waste to off-grid communities. So really having witnessed this determination of these startups to drive forward positive change, I think this year has been a reminder of how critical it is that we as a business community really stay committed to circular transformation and support all of these pioneering solutions. So as a program, and I think in terms of what's next, I think we're very, very determined to build on this momentum, raise our ambition, and continue to support and circular startups and really maximizing their impact through focused and scaled ecosystem collaboration with all the necessary actors that are committed to the same outcomes. So a little bit on what we're proud of, really what we've seen, and what we hope to see next. Thank you, Wesley. And now, Fernando, what has the Circular's program meant to the forum and uplink? Well, thanks for the opportunity. And I've always thought that this is kind of an unfair question because it's a long history of learning together. But if I had to focus on three things, I think the first one is really there's nobody who knows everything about innovation. And this has given us as an organization the opportunity to learn a lot, not only in the partnership with Accenture, but also from the enormous and super exciting examples from the innovators themselves, that would be the first one. The second is something that kind of speaks to the fabric of the forum, which is probably the more systemic we think about this, the higher the likelihood of some of these innovations to actually flourish and make it to delivering the social and the economic benefit that has motivated this fantastic group of innovators. And the last one is it's probably important to think that we not only need a lot of creativity on the solutions, on the technology, but actually on the schemes, on the structure, on the machinery of bringing some of these innovations alive. And maybe if there's anything that I would say as an opportunity, it's actually to continue integrating these great examples into the work that we do in our centers and outside of the World Economic Forum, basically in a number of the socioeconomic systems where this will again deliver that value to society, to all of us. And so how has the program shaped its approach, the forum's approach to engaging the startup community on circular innovation? How does the forum work with the startup community? Yeah, it's a journey, it's a journey, but we've learned a lot through this program, actually. And I think the work that we're doing with Uplink as well has given us a new opportunity to potentiate and to amplify the integration of these startups into our work. For the longest time, since its inception, the forum was created as a multi-stakeholder platform. And the role of innovations, motor companies, startups, scale-ups, the small and medium enterprise is just as important as the more recognized, let's say established corporates, the public sector or academia. So for us is a journey that we've only been in it for the last 50 years or so as an organization, but looking forward to what actually what we can do in this together for the next phase. And now a question for both of you. Wesley, let's start with you. How have you seen circular solutions begin to transform industries? And what does this mean for the future of the circular economy? It's a very important question. And I have been working in this space for over a decade. So I've really seen it all from where we've started, from where we are now. And I think firstly, it's so encouraging to see more and more organizations move away from our linear thinking to start to really implement circular business models and practices. And I think the global community has really come together to recognize and dress that our vast sustainability challenges ahead can only be solved. Or if we really think about how we produce and consume our resources and ultimately all the products and services that we have in our organizations that we offer as well as use in our daily lives. And we're seeing more companies set bold circular targets and implement new solutions across industries to really focus on moving away from doing less bad to more net positive and regenerative thinking and ambition. And I think circular has really been recognized as a driver for this and not only that but a driver for growth and competitiveness which is very important as it has a lot of multi-dimensional value to bring. And these efforts are driven by adopting new practices, implementing cutting-edge circular programs that fundamentally really rethink the design, the use or reuse and recovery of products and services to start to create these more closed loop systems. So as a result, I think circular is rapidly becoming a business imperative in addition to an environmental imperative. However, we are getting closer to our sustainable development goals timeline and we must start to really accelerate beyond pilots and some siloed efforts to real large scale transformation that embeds circularity into business as usual. And it can't just be in businesses individually but we need broader system-wise change. And that's what I think we really want to encourage as the next wave of innovation. So stakeholders across ecosystems coming together to rapidly innovate, test, learn and adopt solutions that can accelerate to a circular future. And a key enabler of this is really to rethink some of these partnerships going beyond their traditional models and adopting new ways for corporations, governments, startups and stakeholders to find new solutions that will really catalyze this transformation. So it's a very significant opportunity. That's what we feel. That's what I feel for companies to reinvent themselves to enable this circular system that will be more resilient, create more relevancy for customers while contributing to the restoration of our natural systems all at once. And again, innovation is such a critically important part of this. Fernando, you wanna add on to that? Well, actually, if I may just pick up on that last part. We've been thinking a lot about what all this innovation, this movement means at a larger scale for the transformation of industries themselves. And some of us have been working in the space of transformation of industries and see that this is so critical. A program like this actually brings two important elements. One is almost every sector that we turn to aspires to become more sustainable and to actually take sustainability-leading roles. So the opportunity of a program like the Circular and Accelerators where we bring leading companies of these sectors embedded into this ecosystem with the innovators gives us that opportunity. The other incredibly interesting question is to what extent the recomposition of industry sectors is actually accelerated by the acceleration of this process of innovation. To what extent can we actually, in a way, break a little bit those boundaries that allow those innovations to come through. So I think what was illustrated there actually hits right on what we see in this integration with the transformation of industries, which is something that we do here at the forum as well. Thank you, Fernando. We're running out of time, so very quickly, Wes, do you have any final words you'd like to share with the community as we celebrate the close of this year's program? Yeah, I think just to say a huge thank you. It's inspiring for me, it's inspiring for all of us watching and involved to see what innovation can do from this year's cohort and from our previous programs and for the passion and commitment to really bring disruptive circular solutions to life. And it's inspiring to see the impact that we're witnessing across industries, as Fernando pointed out, and incredibly excited to see what all of our innovators will do next and where they go and where they will take all of us on this journey. And I would really, really like to thank Cohort 23 for this deep engagement participation that you've had throughout the program. So on behalf of myself, the Circular Accelerator team and the wider program, again, thank you for inspiring us to push the boundaries on what is possible. And I think that's important for all of us to remember, really tapping into the unlocked value of circular transformation represents a huge opportunity for reinvention to solve for some of our biggest challenges. And ultimately, we cannot enable this system change that's required in our day to day work in lives without partnering in new ways, without collaborating and learning from each other. And I think this will continue to be the heart of the Circular's program. So a huge thank you to our partners, advisors, mentors, supporters, innovators, and of course, everyone listening today. It's been an immense honor and a lot of fun. And I think what we have seen today and throughout this initiative is really we have the solutions we need to create the change required to support people and planet. So I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to advance the transition to a more sustainable and circular future. Thanks so much, Emmanuel. Thank you. Fernando, any final words just very quickly? No, I think it's a celebration. So congratulations to the cohort and hopefully the beginning of a very exciting next phase. Yes, all right. Thank you both so much for being here today and for the inspiring words. And yes, again, congrats to the whole cohort. Well, that's it for today. We hope you were inspired by these amazing innovations and the future of the circular economy. The Circular's Accelerator 2023 is just one of many innovation challenges that Uplink has held since it was launched at Davos three years ago. So make sure to visit Uplink and of course, don't forget to follow us on social media to find out more about our other challenge topics and to support our community of nearly 400 top innovators as well as our community of investment funds focusing on people and planet. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.