News

The BELLA II project has taken a key step towards promoting innovation across Latin America and the Caribbean with the launch of the Innovation Hub and its General Catalogue of Initiatives. This Innovation Hub aims to boost innovative products and services within the region's digital ecosystem. One of the Hub's cornerstones, the catalog, serves as a dynamic resource for showcasing innovative products, providing opportunities to connect with key stakeholders such as governments, businesses, and investors.

To date, the catalogue, available in Spanish, features 14 proposals, including eight concept notes from the Ideathon and six projects developed during the 2023 Copernicus Hackathon. “As new innovation activities like ideathons and hackathons take place and results from pilot projects and testbeds become available, the catalog will continue to expand. Although the catalog currently serves as an information source for the ideas and products that will be presented at InnovaInvest, its purpose extends further, aiming to become a permanent and dynamic resource for showcasing innovations at various stages of development," explained Carlos González, Network Services Manager at RedCLARA.

The Hub's aim is to advance high-potential ideas and products by connecting them with key stakeholders who can either benefit from or support these initiatives. Three main components structure the hub.

The first component, Visibility of Results, ensures that developed innovations are accessible and visible to key stakeholders such as governments, businesses, and investors. These stakeholders can find solutions tailored to their needs, such as technologies to combat climate change or specific technology-driven solutions. Additionally, investors can identify opportunities to fund early-stage projects with significant growth potential and returns. "In essence, this component serves as a showcase for innovative offerings, facilitating the adoption and expansion of emerging products and services. The catalog is the instrument that guarantees this visibility," González noted.

The second component focuses on connection and collaboration with stakeholders, providing a platform for innovators, governments, businesses, and funding agencies to meet, collaborate, and seize opportunities to advance high-potential innovative products.

The third component, Strategic Promotion Actions, actively fosters networking between funders, users of innovations, and innovators themselves, creating a collaborative ecosystem that drives the development and implementation of innovative solutions. This component includes the InnovaInvest event, set to take place in Panama City on October 24-25.

Innovative Projects Across the Region

Among the highlighted projects in the Catalogue is the "Spatial-Temporal Vegetation Distribution Monitoring Model," an initiative aimed at tracking and analyzing vegetation distribution across Latin America to protect and manage it sustainably. During the Copernicus Ideathon, an idea for this model emerged, and it is currently in the concept note stage. Countries like Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, and Peru are participating, with key institutional support from Colombia's Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, the National University of Colombia, the Colombian Space Agency, the University of Santander, CINFONIA, the José Simeón Cañas Central American University (UCA) in El Salvador, the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, SENACYT, and Panama's Secretariat of Government and Digital Transformation.

From El Salvador, Merzi Aguilar, an academic and researcher at UCA, emphasizes, "Publishing ideas in the Innovation Hub can raise awareness of the problem we are trying to solve, attracting interested organizations and creating synergies. Through the use of innovative technologies, open data, and shared knowledge, we can build a strong network that enhances and sustains the initiative, with innovation and technological independence as key pillars."

Google Earth Engine developers in Colombia created the "Agric_fam_GEEapp" application, which enables users to visualize climate and agricultural data and compare them with specific areas of interest, such as crops or land. This helps farmers and researchers make more informed decisions. The Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute is collaborating with Colombia to implement the tool, which originated in the Copernicus Hackathon.

Sergio Rojas, Associate Researcher at the Humboldt Institute, explains that "The Innovation Hub can generate more interactions for the tool, resulting in greater evaluation and a higher quantity and variety of observations. This will help us identify potential improvements and data that can enhance the platform, guiding future developments."

BELLA and RedCLARA invite national networks to actively participate in the catalog by contributing innovative proposals. If you have an innovative idea, product, or service in its early stages of development, or if you are a funding entity interested in supporting these initiatives, you can reach out via email: servicios@redclara.net.

You can access the Catalogue in Spanish at the following link: General Catalogue of Initiatives.