Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) has announced the Global Disruptive Tech Challenge 2021: Restoring Landscapes in Aral Sea Region to landscape restoration issues in the Aral Sea region with the potential to scale-up in the entire Central Asia (from the mountains to the steppes).

The challenge is organized with the support of the Central Asia Water and Energy Program (CAWEP) a multi-donor Trust-Fund financed by the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The challenge is administered by the World Bank and will inform the Resilient Landscape Program in Central Asia RESILAND CA +, currently under preparation. It is implemented by the Kazakh-German University (DKU), the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) and Plug and Play (P&P).

This is your opportunity to help change millions of lives, while showcasing your innovative idea before a global audience. Join the Challenge, get recognition from experts and international organizations, and become part of a restoration community.

Themes

This Challenge evolves around four focus themes:

• Agriculture and land management: Solutions that contribute to sustainable development, e.g. sustainable land management, irrigated and rainfed agriculture, grazing land/pastures, water saving and irrigation, and cost-effective technologies to rehabilitate degraded lands.
• Sustainable forestry: This section refers to the disruptive technologies and innovations for sustainable forestry, as well as solutions within the forestry supply chain, to preserve biological diversity, productivity, resilience, viability and the ability of forests to perform important environmental, economic and social functions.
• Socio-economic development: Focuses on solutions that link local communities with innovations for landscape restoration; e.g. improvement of current livelihoods and creating new livelihoods; cooperation and social sustainability; tourism, well-being, public health and other innovative financial and economic instruments, enabling communities to improve their welfare while restoring the landscape.
• Information and knowledge: Landscape restoration solutions that leverage data, remote sensing and mapping technologies, precise agriculture tools, and computing power to enable data-driven decisions by policy makers, public agencies, private service providers, and other users of the landscape.

Eligibility Criteria

• This Challenge is open to participants (“Contestant”) from member countries of the World Bank. Contestants may be individuals or organizations (profit, non-profit organizations, academa). Contestants are responsible for compliance with legal requirements of their country. They are invited to pitch their solutions on innovative landscape restoration. Also, solutions at minimum viable products (MVP) to more developed stages (e.g. already fully commercialized) are eligible for the challenge. Also, only solutions that are at minimum viable product (MVP) stage to more developed stages (e.g. already fully commercialized) are eligible for the challenge.
• The Challenge is open for both international and Central Asian participants.
• Individuals:
  • Individuals must be of a minimum of 18 years old as of (date of submission)
  • An individual or a team may submit entries. Individuals who join teams must meet the eligibility requirements for Individual Contestants
  • Any national from a Bank member country can participate
• Companies, Organizations, Startups:
  • Must be legally established entities (profit, non-profit) in their respective countries
• The following are not eligible to join the Challenge: staff, contractors and vendors of the World Bank Group (The World Bank Group consists of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Development Association, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, the International Finance Corporation, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.), the members of the Evaluation and Finalist Judging Panel; or any company or individual involved with the design, production, execution or distribution of the Challenge and their immediate family members (spouse, parents and step-parents, siblings and step-siblings, children and step-children, aunt, uncle, niece and nephew).

For more information, visit Global Landscapes Forum.