We’re back from COP and we’re excited to share what we’ve learnt!

Reflections from COP27: 20/12/22 - by Alexander Holt

Last month I was on the ground at COP27 in Sharm El Sheik, and the experience I had is a far cry from some of the doom and gloom negative write-ups about the event that I’ve seen since getting home. Myself and innovators from all over the world travelled together as part of the CivTech Alliance Global Scale-Up Programme (GSUP) COP27 Demo day and came home inspired and energised by the willingness to take action in the fight against climate change.

This was the second iteration of our award-winning cross-border programme bringing together government and academic innovation teams across 11 countries to provide 15 climate-tech and green govtech companies the opportunity present in each of the regional ecosystems. The 8 week virtual programme culminated in pitch sessions held in the Green Zone at COP27 for 7 of those 15. It was climate change solutions in action, and we received a lot of attention and engagement from delegates, governments, and changemakers. 

For COP 27 the CivTech Alliance was selected from over 800 applications, to present in the GreenZone Dome at COP27. As well as partnering with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt, our cohort got a fantastic global exposure opportunity meeting investors, stakeholders and key decision-makers, all of whom engaged with our whip-through of live and video presentations of real-life solutions to climate problems. 

The Companies represented were from Brazil, US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, but it was the Scottish Government International Climate Change team who gave us the support with logistics and getting out to the ground. Scotland is leading, albeit sometimes quietly, on bringing together tangible technologies and solutions to the forefront of the climate crisis, but we must encourage more countries to join us - and we need to get louder about this. The range of solutions-focused technologies included tree management platforms preventing loss and damage (Project Green Group - AUS) to a 'tinder for trash' (yes, you read and swiped that right) helping businesses recycle their waste (CiRCLR - NZ), and from Brazil (Lemobs - BR) an incredible school food waste prevention systems with 1 million users. The exposure and impact has led to engagements with the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Finland, a breakfast meeting with the Deputy Premier of South Australia and already led to proof of concepts being scoped out. And for Australian Val.AI, their participation on the programme and demo at COP27 in large part helped them secure $1m AUS in seed funding in early December.

This wasn’t the first time the CivTech Alliance had visited COP, having debuted to the world at COP26 in Glasgow last year, but even that wasn’t the beginning of the journey. The programme was born in March 2020, with an ambition of building a global network of government innovation teams around the world, based around the impressive success of the CivTech Scotland Government Tech Accelerator. As the shutters came down for the pandemic, so the global weekly video calls spun up. Over the following nine months, teams from around the world leaned in on each other as many of us found ourselves at the forefront of governments’ technological response to the pandemic.

Amidst the global uncertainty of the pandemic, there we were, a small Scottish team building trust and friendships and a collective of people who want to use tech-for-good and solve major problems facing the world with innovative solutions. That desire drives us still, and is what we took with us to Egypt this year, and I can tell you the appetite for exponential solutions to exponential problems is stronger than ever - the recent Earthshot Prize is testament to that. 

We have the capability to be a bridge-builder around the world, and engaging with events like COP is so important in doing that. As there is growing clamour for governments to come to the table with solutions, understanding the technological landscape of what is possible near term and long term is vital, and having trusted guidance on that is key. That is where GovTech programmes such as CivTech Scotland, GovTech Lab Lithuania, StartOff Norway and Go2Gov Australia are essential. 

These bridge builders between technologists and policy-makers are the translators, navigators, scaffolders, paving the way for innovation in both product and process. So many of us are there anyway, so many of us exist within governments and businesses, and we don’t need to commit huge budgets to coming together - but we do need to commit the willingness. If the past two COP events have taught me anything, it’s that we must look up and out if we are to solve the challenges we face. We need a global mindset. 

We wouldn’t have been selected to present were that down to the breadth of our participating programmes. We wouldn't have been able to team up with the Egyptian Government were it not for the relationships built by the Lithuanian government. We wouldn’t have been able to present without the partnership of the Egyptian government. The companies wouldn’t have met the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Finland and the Deputy Premier of Australia without the support from the in-country programmes. We need an international mindset - to look beyond our borders for partners, funding, and solutions. At a time when things are hard there is an understandable temptation to focus on ourselves. This is just the time we need to look up and outwards.