 What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot For our generation and for specifically my group of people which is refugees circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have You're trying to rebuild you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate related disaster come and you start again It's not about how it's affecting you now. It's about how it's affecting you your entire life First step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis We're at a stage where if we don't act now really there won't be very much left There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life We have to start treating this like the emergency it is To achieve the 17 sustainable development goals, we have to go from an intention to a serious commitment Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate friendly The action I would like to see is accountability Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they made There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drive change forward The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope, hope that a positive change is possible The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change Welcome to the Uplink Daily. I'm your host, Emanuele Orsini, joining you from the Sustainable Development Impact Summit here at the World Economic Forum in Geneva Throughout the SDI Summit, we've been bringing you the latest updates from the forum's Uplink platform And today, we're excited to announce the best solutions that were submitted to our recent Trillion Trees Amazon Bioeconomy Challenge A call for sustainable solutions that protect and restore the biodiversity and ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest Held in partnership with our colleagues at 1T.org, the aim of the Trillion Trees Amazon Bioeconomy Challenge is to find and scale the innovation projects that not only preserve and restore this vital ecosystem But also provide livelihoods for the people living there Today, we'll be talking to some of the world's leading experts on this crucial topic, as well as one of the winners of the challenge And of course, we'll announce the full list of solutions chosen to be top Uplink innovators But before we do that, let's watch this video to find out more about the challenge Now, our first guest today is Paulo Mutinho, co-founder and senior researcher from IPAM Brazil, who sent us this message on why transitioning to a sustainable Amazon bioeconomy is key for the future of the Amazon and its people Amazon is an essential source of critical information to maintain this planet alive, now and in the future The region supports a high biological diversity and its forests play a fundamental functional role in maintaining the global climate in balance Any viable solution to global climate change requires the Amazon rainforest to remain in standing The Amazon is the last history frontier where we can find the socio-economic opportunities to support the so-dreamest sustainable development It's a source of traditional knowledge, a local knowledge accumulated over centuries by traditional communities and indigenous people This knowledge combined with a mainstream science and a modern approach could create essential conditions to emerge a new economic approach, the bioeconomy In other words, a new approach to conciliate economic prosperity and environmental protection, protecting people's rights and valuing the local knowledge If we want to move forward with a successful process that encourages a transition to sustainable bioeconomy in the region, it's crucial to support innovative and social inclusive initiatives It will be necessary to provide a feasible opportunity to people who want to make a difference Bioeconomy challenge represents this opportunity, favorite innovation, diversity, gender and social inclusion The challenge is a breath of hope, and also bioeconomy challenge represents an opportunity to provide a source of a demonstrative case on how we can support bioeconomic initiatives, not only in the Amazon region, but around the tropical world Thank you Paolo for sending us a powerful message We had a fantastic response to this challenge, almost 100 solutions were submitted through the Uplink platform And now it's time to announce which of them have been chosen by our panel of experts to become top Uplink innovators and to receive support from uplink1t.org and their partners to scale their solutions for maximum impact Congratulations to all of the winners of the Trillion Trees Amazon Bioeconomy Challenge Now let's learn more about these exciting innovators Joining me here in the studio to discuss the innovations is my Uplink colleague and the topic curator for this challenge, Gianluca Gigax Thanks for being here Gianluca Thank you very much for having me, Emanuella Now tell us about the selection process and the range of submissions we received for this challenge Yeah, it's been a very exciting few months for us here at 1T.org and Uplink going through this process We received over 85 submissions for the Amazon Bioeconomy Challenge that are all tackling the conservation and restoration of the Amazon forests And personally, I was excited to see that there is so much good work and positive work being done to build up and enable an Amazon Bioeconomy So we've received projects ranging all the way from indigenous led agroforestry projects to companies that are enabling small holder farmers in Brazil to produce cocoa more sustainably Overall, we then went through five weeks of intensive review and selection phase to find the best submissions out of all of those As you can imagine, it wasn't an easy task but luckily we also had help from our supporting partners such as the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, WRI, Salesforce, etc Who helped us really to narrow down and end up with a selection of the best top innovations So how many of the top innovators were selected and can you pick out a few that stood out to you? Yeah, in the end we ended up selecting 15 top submissions and they're all equally as exciting and as good And it's actually hard for me to pick out some few top ones that stood out for me because for me all of them kind of stood out But if I would have to pick, there is for example on the value chain side, we have bio refineria sumasacha Who really capitalize on Latin America's biodiversity and bring that to the market through products such as oils, etc. for wellness, health and so on Bring that to an international market and thus enable the communities also that grow these products to have a sustainable income In a similar fashion we have view life which operates in the rural areas of Ecuador And what they do is they plant Amazonian vanilla plants into 4000 hectares of agroforestry zones in order to also generate and then market these products and generate an income for the local communities In a different but similar way we also have two other organizations like Onisafra who are enabling the bioeconomy by providing a digital platform that allows farmers from the Amazon to connect with industry and corporations and sell actually their products to a market And the most amazing thing is that this tech startup is based in the middle of the Amazon in Manaus, Brazil And similarly to this we also have Amazonia Emprende which is an organization that works in Caquetá, Colombia in the Amazon there And they provide capacity building and training to families throughout the region on how to set up these agroforestry system, how to set up this bioeconomy and generate an income from nature at the end of the day And what excites me most about all of these is that they are all ready to scale, they are a proven concept, they are now ready to take it to the next level For example the last one they are now looking to engage with 1500 families over the coming year and really take their work to the next level So they are ready to scale, what kind of benefits will they get from the program to be able to scale up? Yes, we are actually super excited that together with Uplink, 1TLVORG and the partners involved in that challenge we now embark on a four month long engagement programs with these 15 cohort members in order to help them exactly to scale up and accelerate the work that they are doing More specifically this program consists of providing these innovators these solutions with more visibility, elevating them into a global stage and showcasing the fantastic work that they are doing But also it includes access to our networks from the World Economic Forum, from our partners to experts that can help meet the needs that they have in order to scale up their businesses And lastly there is also the peer to peer learning that is happening through the cohort, through talking with other innovators and learning from experiences that others have had What excites me most about this one as well is for this challenge particularly we also, all the submissions have a chance to be fast tracked for grant and investment funding from the IDB lab So another way to kind of provide that initial help to get that scaling up started Personally I'm super excited for the journey that's ahead and very much looking forward to working with all of these 15 cohort members and at the same time bring along as many of you watching today on this journey for a bioeconomy for the Amazon that's good for people, planet and prosperity Exciting months ahead, thanks so much for being here Janluka Thank you very much Emanuela Now our last interview today gives us the chance to talk to an innovator behind one of these incredible solutions chosen to receive the support that Janluka just outlined for us Congratulations to you and thanks for joining us today We are all very happy to be part of this wonderful initiative, thank you Now can you introduce yourself and your organization I'm Muen De Arenas, I'm the executive director of Alisos Alisos is an NGO that was created 11 years ago in order to bring different stakeholders together to rethink pathways to bring us to a sustainable future Of course we believe that the pathway to a sustainable future requires sitting together with all key actors Actors that think differently, that have different worldviews but that their visions are critical in order to start to build that road Since the beginning we thought and we knew that the Amazon region plays a very critical role in the sustainability of Columbia The sustainability of the indigenous communities and peasant communities that are living in the Amazon in Columbia Also for South America but also for the world Today in climate change crisis, of course the Amazon plays a critical role And what we've been doing is starting to build up also bridges between different sectors and particularly the private sector To see how we can work together from also their perspective, indigenous perspective, community perspective and NGO civil society So we've been doing this for the last 11 years What was the inspiration behind your company? We got inspired because we started to see the positive results of building bridges between different sectors and between different visions And the need to have those bridges built and have open honest conversations in order to see how we could come up with solutions altogether for the problems we were confronting at that moment Most of them had to do with conflicts, a social environment conflict So bringing and building bridges was a very profound moving pathway to think of solutions for the future And that's how we got inspired and that's why Alices which means partnership for sustainability was created and founded And what do you hope to get out of this program? Ecotourism is on the mind of every community in the Amazon as being the big solution However, there is no example closed in Columbia that can say look this is the way to do it And you have to build not only, you don't only have beautiful landscapes and you have a very well preserved landscape And you have cultural, you can offer alternatives of different cultures but you have to think of it as a sustainable model And you have to really think of it in the long term So what we're doing here is we're building with the communities Understanding also different ways of thinking and saying that is fine It's wonderful to have this beautiful surroundings but you need to think in terms of who you want to attract How much is your capacity? Where do you want to go? How will that benefit the community? Not only in terms of your income or money that is coming but also in strengthening the processes that you're working On other parts of your community in other aspects of the community So what we want to do here is demonstrate that it's possible to be able to upscale to all the Amazon region And start building up this spirit of entrepreneurship that has to go in the long run It's not easy to think that indigenous communities or local communities are entrepreneurial in our classical way In our way that we think entrepreneurship moves Here everything has to be slightly different because you're talking about different ways of thinking, different cultures But also what does it mean to be entrepreneurial when you're in the midst of the Amazon And you're not surrounded by a market economy And maybe it's a very different market economy the one you want to bring to the Amazon as well What support or resources do you need to take your innovation to the next level? What we definitely need to do is first demonstrate that it's possible Second start to build an example to be an example to the rest of the communities Let this be known to others to the value chain upstream to those potential tourists that can come in Let's bring investment money but investment money that is willing to do an effort of investment differently That is committed to a different way of yields of profits And here we really need a community of not only your clients your consumers of a different product of a different experience Of getting closer to nature but also different type of investments If you have investors whose only interest is the economic yields Well those are not going to be the appropriate so we want to demonstrate that this it has a more open let's say a bigger scope Of what yields benefits are for the investors for the indigenous for the tourists because this is a whole 100% 360% Opportunity in that sense Thanks so much for joining us today and best of luck on your uplink journey. We could not be more excited to start working with you And that's all for this edition of the uplink daily. Thank you for joining us You can also watch previous uplink dailies on the forums website and if you missed it you should also check out this session Innovating for sustainability the entrepreneurs who could save the world which is a chance to watch a select group of uplink innovators Pitch their innovations and then vote for the one you think has the most potential Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time