Today, 343 million people are facing acute hunger—more than double the number from just a few years ago.
This dramatic rise is driven by a combination of conflict, increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters, and a global cost-of-living crisis.
In the face of these growing humanitarian challenges, the World Food Program is turning to innovation to maximize its impact and reach those most in need.
Through the WFP Innovation Accelerator, WFP identifies, supports, and scales high-impact solutions that have the potential to disrupt hunger and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
In this talk, Bernhard Kowatsch will explore how innovation can play a transformative role in tackling global hunger and building a more food-secure future.
Bernhard Kowatsch, is the Head of the United Nations (UN) World Food Program (WFP) Innovation Accelerator, which he created in 2015. The Accelerator sources, nurtures, and scales start-ups and nonprofits working to achieve Zero Hunger, and has run 22 accelerator programmes for external partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Humanitarian Grand Challenge, Adaptation Fund and other UN Agencies, with more planned.
Prior to starting the Accelerator, Bernhard co-founded the award-winning ShareTheMeal app that crowdsources funding for WFP and has delivered over 264 million meals for hungry children worldwide. His previous experience includes creating WFP’s Business Innovation Unit and working as a Project Leader at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
To learn more, go to: https://innovation.wfp.org/
