How the UN's SDGs get grassroots solutions on a corporate budget with this platform

UpLink was launched at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos in January 2020, with an ambition to accelerate the Decade of Delivery – to source and scale the innovative solutions that would make achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 a reality.

Through co-operation between the WEF, Salesforce, Deloitte and Microsoft/LinkedIn, a crowdsourcing platform was built to connect grassroots solutions with investors, experts and potential markets to help them scale their businesses.

One year later, through a series of challenges, UpLink has unveiled more than 2,500 innovations from 38 different countries to tackle issues ranging from waste to carbon capture and healthy oceans. Entrepreneurs who have pitched investors on UpLink have secured more than $100 million in funding since joining the platform.

To dig into the impact the funding has had and what social entrepreneurs can expect from participating, co-hosts Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner are joined this week by the WEF's John Dutton.

In this episode

What is Uplink and how is it helping? (0m 39s)

What does scaling mean for Uplink? (9m 30s)

The archetype of problem owners (11m 36s)

Uplink's necessity for WEF (13m 45s)

Hosted by Mustafa Alrawi and Kelsey Warner

Produced by Arthur Eddyson and Ayesha Khan