The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s InnovationXchange and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are calling for innovative solutions for improving global health outcomes through better nutrition.
LAUNCH Food (part of the LAUNCH innovation platform) aims to create a worldwide coalition of committed innovators and thinkers focused on identifying innovations with the potential to transform food and nutrition systems in a variety of contexts worldwide, while respecting the planet’s resources.
The challenge will give participants the opportunity to have their proposals reviewed by a “world-class” network of industry pioneers, government organisations, investors and innovation experts. Winning innovations will be funded through the platform.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia Julie Bishop, who announced the challenge alongside USAID, said that “in our part of the world, about half the children in countries close to Australia – a first-world developed economy – half the children are suffering the effects of undernutrition”.
“Paradoxically, obesity leading to chronic disease burden is at epidemic levels,” she said. “For the first time we have a generation that has a shorter life span than the previous generation. This cannot continue.
“Through LAUNCH Food – a partnership with USAID – we will be gathering the best and brightest ideas, putting $5 million into this challenge so that we can come up with ideas that can actually be turned into reality and can make a different, a positive difference to lives of people around the world.”
Submissions for LAUNCH Food are due on November 16 with interested applicants able to learn more or share their submissions at launch.org/food. Winning innovators will be announced in February 2017.