Climate Change Tech Accelerator

On 19 December, UNDP ImpactAim, jointly with Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center and Europe’s leading climate innovation initiative Climate-KIC, organized “Tech4impact: Driving change for SDGs” event within the frames of Climate Change Tech Accelerator. The objective of the event was to gather people from different walks of life interested in discussing the challenges of achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how technology can help to tackle those issues.

The event started out with the opening keynotes by Dmitry Mariyasin, UNDP Resident Representative a.i. in Armenia, and Neil Walmsley, International Business Development & Partnerships Lead, and was followed by Europe’s leading Climate Initiative - Climate-KIC (Knowledge Innovation Community) expert talks and a tailored panel discussion. Prior to Demo Day, Climate Tech startups had the opportunity to work one on one with the experts during the 2-day intensive workshop series, giving them the opportunity to finetune their pitch decks and come up with the refined business and impact models.

The event was resumed with the demo presentations of the Climate Change Tech Accelerator startups graduating from the first batch and a networking evening with the field experts and community members.

Below you can find the bio of the Climate-KIC experts that the UNDP ImpactAim hosted:

MarLa Burgener: Burgener founded GreenGoWeb in 2012, a pioneer company in gamification for bottom-up data collection and for the Common Good. Since 2015, her work focuses on the SDGs and she is part of the UN Innovation Lab for the 2030 Agenda.

Gil María Campos Alabau: Gil María is a Project Manager and Business Coach and Consultant in innovation, leadership, entrepreneurship and development, with working experience in Africa, America, Asia, and Europe.

Patrick Bottermann: Patrick is chiefly working for the non-profit think and do tank Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) in Germany. His focus is on innovation for sustainability, CSR, multi-stakeholder management, and sustainable business model innovation.

As part of their visit, the Climate-KIC experts have also participated in the Ministry of Diaspora’s flagship “Neruzh programme” for young entrepreneurs of Armenian descent. Over 70 diaspora and local startups were part of a 4-day bootcamp in UWC Dilijan from December 17-21 with local and international mentors and coaches.

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The Climate Change Technology Accelerator – one of the key components of “Addressing Climate Change Impact Through the Enhanced Capacity for Wildfires Management in Armenia” UNDP-Russia Trust Fund for Development Project and is implemented by UNDP in Armenia in cooperation with ISTC - Innovative Solutions and Technologies Center, Founder Institute Yerevan and Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF).