Equal Innovation

Happy Thanksgiving to all of those change makers out there!?To those working countless hours to serve their communities, at social enterprises, and for political campaigns around the world without concern for compensation or instant gratification.?A special shout out to core team at Equal Innovation of Sujata Subramanian, Darshan Lotliker, Anushka Mishra and Naisargi Desai. Also to the extended crew that worked with us this year.?Niamh McKinney, Jerry Wekesa, Fiona Miller, Sameer Acharya, Meena Bhattar, Young Jin Chang, Minsub Kim, Arghyadeep Palai, Lipi Gupta, Quanisha Saboo, Cecilia N., Jared Aimone, Emilia Kinnunen and so many others.

This year, G20 Brasil 2024 launches Year 2 of the Startup20 initiative to help the G20 nations collaborate on innovative technology and startup creation.?Startups contribute $3 trillion to the global economy - as much as some of the G7 nations do. ?But reports and convenings are not enough.?More must be done to scale innovative technologies to fight climate change, health pandemics and media disinformation. Equal Innovation is proud to continue its partnership with Startup20 to directly support impactful startups seeking new markets in the G20 nations.?Over the next year, we will be leveraging Startup20 as part of a new #Track 2 dialogue between Innovation Ministers and Economic Development agencies around the world to smooth pathways for startups to enter new markets, raise capital and address common challenges such as climate change. There are already similar national efforts to support entrepreneurs, such as the U.S. Economic Development Administration Tech Hubs, India’s Atal Innovation Mission Official , the EU’s LIFE program and Saudi Arabia’s Entrepreneurship Vision. ?By creating a platform that connects all of these agencies, we can make it easier for startups to raise capital outside their home nation, for researchers to collaborate on product development, and for policy makers to benchmark their startups ecosystems in real time against the rest of the world.?In 2025, we plan to bring startups from all the G20 countries to the The World Bank, COP30 climate change conference, United Nations General Assembly and G20 Summit in South Africa.

Were artificial intelligence and advanced analytics an impactful part of the US Presidential election? Might depend how you look at it. On the one hand, the concerns about deepfakes and AI spreading misinformation proved to be overstated - not just in the US, but other recent elections like the UK and India. On the other hand, the campaigns embraced AI big time. Online platforms ActBlue and NGP used AI to drive incredible grassroots fundraising and candidate matching. The Harris campaign was able to pinpoint voters and remind them to vote as late as 4pm on Tuesday (sadly not enough of them...). As with all technologies, when the use case was clear, AI flourished. https://lnkd.in/ejMivSux

Were artificial intelligence and advanced analytics an impactful part of the US Presidential election? Might depend how you look at it. On the one hand, the concerns about deepfakes and AI spreading misinformation proved to be overstated - not just in the US, but other recent elections like the UK and India. On the other hand, the campaigns embraced AI big time. Online platforms ActBlue and NGP used AI to drive incredible grassroots fundraising and candidate matching. The Harris campaign was able to pinpoint voters and remind them to vote as late as 4pm on Tuesday (sadly not enough of them...). As with all technologies, when the use case was clear, AI flourished. https://lnkd.in/ejMivSux

The world lost one of its greatest innovators last week when Dr. Richard Cash passed away. Dr. Cash was one of the inventors of Oral Rehydration Therapy, a low-tech combination of water, salt and sugar given to children with cholera, dysentery and other similar illnesses. The World Health Organization estimates that oral hydration therapy has saved more than 50 million lives. In 1978, the British medical journal The Lancet called their innovation “potentially the most important medical advance this century.” We often conflate innovation with technology, expensive R&D and investment capital. But ORT is proof that innovation can be low-tech and have massive, massive impact on the world.

We met some amazing innovators at our Chicago event earlier this year!

The US Presidential election is just days away, and the result will impact innovation and startups in several sectors of the economy. This year, we featured some amazing startups, including: Celadyne Technologies, Blip Energy and nutrād – 3 startups focused on greening and improving the global supply chain, which has been a major topic of discussion in Washington, DC and other world capitals through the Infrastructure Act and the clean energy-focused Inflation Reduction Act.??Overall, we identified several hundred startups fighting climate change, improving the supply chain and preparing America for the next pandemic. Great innovation and great public service.

Its great to participate in the world's foremost innovation prize event. Nishith (Nish) Acharya Acharya of Equal Innovation has co-chaired the Learning and Society Braintrust (Advisory Group) for X-Prize.

We spent last week in NYC for the UN General Assembly / NYC Climate Week. I attended the closing bell of the NYSE New York Stock Exchange with XPRIZE and President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa - a once in a lifetime experience. Also saw old friends and attended great events hosted by Dasra and Indiaspora. But overall, I came away disappointed. A friend summed it up when he said, "I see a lot more activity than a decade ago, but nothing has really changed." Those with innovations and new approaches to address the challenges of global poverty, conflict, health or climate struggled for airtime, while corporate and government leaders regurgitating old promises were feted for marginal progress. Instead of scaling the number of events, let's focus on scaling solutions. #unga #nycclimateweek #innovation #climatetech #entrepreneurs #cop29

I just returned from a tremendous week of G20 meetings in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The G20 Startup20 task force brought together delegations from around the world to build on last year's efforts to build common frameworks to support innovation and entrepreneurs across borders. Brazil's startup ecosystem is full of innovative technologies for its huge, diverse cities and the all-important Amazon region. This week is the annual SME Finance Forum, Managed by the IFC (International Finance Corporation). Glad to see South America prominently featured in these global conversations. hashtag #innovation #entrepreneurship #G20 #Brazil #startup20