Innovation Lab
Welthungerhilfe's Innovation Lab is a space where the organization's employees can present and try out new ideas. Every year, a jury selects one winning idea.
Innovative ideas for #ZeroHunger
After years of decreasing hunger, the global population suffering from hunger is rising again. Environmental degradation, climate change, social inequalities, and conflicts are increasing, threatening the livelihoods of millions. Thus, when, if not now, is the time to take action?
With the help of innovative and creative solutions that make our world a better place, we aim to achieve our goal #oneplanet #zerohunger.
There are so many great ideas within our organization inspired by the problems we witness within the communities where we work. To give these ideas the chance to grow big, Welthungerhilfe (WHH) has created a space, where our organization's employees can present and test these ideas and exchange them with colleagues around the globe – #InnoLab!
Within the Innovation Lab, WHH colleagues can refine, iterate and advance their ideas in a short timeframe with facilitation from the Innovation Unit. A jury, made up of both external and internal WHH colleagues, rates the presented ideas and selects one winning idea.
Next steps after the Innovation Lab
We see the Innovation Lab as a vehicle for our incubation and acceleration portfolio. The winning idea will be added to this innovation portfolio, where it will be refined and jointly developed with our Innovation Unit. Additionally, the winning team receives €20,000 in funding to financially support the further development of the idea.
The ideas that were not selected as winners of the Innovation Lab are of course still followed up and shared within the organization aiming at finding a place within WHH to develop them further.
Innovation Lab 2024
How can we address key challenges in food systems with innovative (venture) ideas by applying the human-centered design?
That was the question of this year's Innovation Lab, #innolab2024. Not only the explicit focus on food systems was new for this year's idea competition, but also the collaboration with Rootical and the Seeding the Future Foundation.
The event series kicked off with 31 teams from 18 different countries and an introduction to human-centered design as the basic concept of the innolab. This was followed by an AI workshop and many other brainstorming and idea generation methods, which were presented in a total of seven online workshops. In addition to this theoretical input, practical group work was also carried out to apply the newly learned approaches and methods directly.
A large part of this year's innolab was also to collect as much valuable feedback as possible from the target groups – three times in total – which was then incorporated into the further development of the ideas and prototypes.
Five teams successfully navigated several selection processes against the competition, so that in the end the teams from Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, Nepal and Niger traveled to Nairobi to work intensively on their ideas and prototypes in a final week. The focus of this week was to develop an even deeper understanding of the underlying challenges and the needs of the target groups. Further brainstorming and ideation workshops as well as pitching training sessions got the teams ready for the final event, where they presented their ideas not only to a jury and the in-person audience, but also to a large online audience.
Winning team of #innolab2024
The teams and their ideas were evaluated by the jury based on the criteria of innovativeness, commercial viability, scalability, impact, problem-solution-fit and relevance to solving the problem. The decision was not easy, but the team from Burundi was able to prevail against the other ideas with its idea of a “Conservation-as-a-Service” model for the long-term preservation of sweet potatoes.
Sweet potato processors in Burundi face the problem that without suitable preservation techniques, up to 80% of the harvest can be lost within a month.
A storage bin made from regional materials offers a suitable solution: a bamboo or perforated tube ensures air circulation, while ash prevents fungal diseases.
The team's idea includes not only the storage bin, but also services for installation, operation and maintenance. Regional production increases the income of farmers, improves vitamin A supply and reduces the need for sugar and flour import. Since there are neither national competitors nor research on sweet potato preservation yet, this solution is innovative and unique.
Call for action
Are you interested in supporting the Innovation Lab? We would be very happy to hear from you! Upcoming innolabs will also offer opportunities to do so. Please feel free to contact us and together we will consider how to proceed.
