UN FAO World Food Forum Startup Innovation Awards – powered by Extreme Tech Challenge
We are proud to announce the launch of the third annual World Food Forum Startup Innovation Awards together with our partner, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Supporting an end to global hunger
The WFF Startup Innovation Awards, powered by Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) are a global startup competition established to support and showcase innovators and entrepreneurs who are harnessing the power of technology to drive the sustainable transformation of agrifood systems in support of ending global hunger and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
This year’s World Food Forum (WFF) theme “agrifood systems transformation accelerates climate action”, highlights the urgent need to address the challenges posed by climate change, and its impact on our agrifood systems.
Through the WFF Startup Innovation Awards, we are seeking to identify, elevate, and accelerate the growth of startups who show the greatest potential for a positive impact in transforming agrifood systems, aligned to one of the four categories below.
Additionally, one startup will be awarded the prestigious Startup Innovator of the Year.
Categories:
The Startup Innovation Awards provide finalists and award winners the potential for global visibility, the ability to raise capital, network with global entities (governments, United Nations agencies, corporations, VCs & partners), as well as gain the mentorship opportunities they need to pioneer technological breakthroughs and help power a sustainable future for our food.
Meet the judges and evaluators of the 2022 WFF Startup Innovation Awards.
With our friends at the WFF Innovation Labs, we launched a call for applications to the Startup Innovation Awards on May 2, 2023 during the STI Forum at the UN Headquarters in New York and Rome. We encourage startups from all corners of the world whose work impacts an element of agrifood systems: production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food products that originate from agriculture, forestry or fisheries, and parts of the broader economic, societal and natural environments in which they are embedded.
Key Dates:
May 2: Launch of the Competition & Call for Applications
June 15: Application Deadline
July 5-19: Round 1 Evaluation
August 1: Public Announcement of Semi-Finalists
August 16: Semi-Finals Private Pitch
August 21: Public Announcement of Finalists
October 18: Live Pitch Day & Announcement of Winners at the World Food Forum in Rome
Watch the 2022 Startup Innovation Awards
Watch the 2021 Startup Innovation Awards