The IOC concept came out of the understanding that science plays a fundamental role in building a better world. Brazil invests substantially in science and technology, but there is still the great challenge of directing this vast knowledge towards solving the country’s major problems.
In a mission, the IOC forms scientific teams made up of members from different organizations with complementary skills who work together to develop technologies to solve a specific challenge efficiently and sustainably. With the IOC, WTT also promotes an advocacy component in its work and aims, in addition to new technologies, to bring about systemic changes within the scientific environment in Brazil.
Centro de Orquestração de Inovações - Estratégias de Inovação Orientadas a Problemas
De Pelotas a Boa Vista: Parcerias científicas para enfrentar a pandemia
Guia metodológico formação de equipes extraordinárias para missões de desesenvolvimento tecnológico
Missions
Bioeconomy
WTT inaugurates the IOC's activities by looking at bioplastic technology.
Special Website
By bioeconomy, we mean an economy capable of using natural wealth in a sustainable way and generating the conservation of biomes, as well as promoting the well-being of local populations through the generation of employment and income. From this perspective, it’s not just industries and businesses, but communities – indigenous, quilombolas, family farmers, among others – that generate revenue, work and income, and dedicate themselves to the sustainable use of the land and natural resources in their territories. Brazil has great potential for the development of the bioeconomy in the Amazon, not only because of the region’s natural wealth, but also because of the products and scientific research that are already being produced in the territory and which can be leveraged with the right impetus and strategic support.
In Bioeconomy, WTT opens the IOC’s activities by looking at bioplastic technology. Having seen the leading role that plastic plays in the industrial hub of the Manaus region, the development of a new sustainable material had the potential to enter this productive dynamic as an innovative solution to various socio-environmental problems.
Made from Brazil nut waste, the bioplastic development project is the result of WTT’s orchestration of partners such as the State University of Amazonas (in collaboration with guest researchers), IDESAM and Tutiplast, who work together in the different stages of the project, from fieldwork with communities, to research and development of the material, to liaising with industry to produce the bioplastic on a large scale.
The Bioeconomy Mission has already received funding from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and currently has an arrangement with contributions from PPBIO and the FJBSA.
Bioeconomia Amazonica - uma navegação pelas fronteiras cientificas e potenciais de inovação
Futuros do Bioplástico têm raízes na Amazônia
Family Agriculture Mission
Focus on ways to contribute to fairer and more sustainable agricultural production
Special WebsiteFocusing efforts on innovations in the field of family agriculture is central to protecting biodiversity, guaranteeing food security, stimulating income generation, fighting poverty and strengthening adaptation and mitigation of the effects of the climate crisis. If, on the one hand, there are mature and dynamic innovation ecosystems supporting agricultural production, there is a democratic innovation deficit in the field of family farming that highlights both the need to support these practices and the development opportunity that this gap offers.
Within the framework of Family Farming, WTT has been articulating efforts and scientific teams in the search for and consolidation of solutions that contribute to fairer, more sustainable and equal agricultural production.
Agroecologies of Brazil, for example, consists of detailed studies and analyses of Brazilian territories with high innovation potential for agroecological transition and identifies scientific research opportunities for innovative solutions aimed at agroecology.
Science, Technology and Innovation in the Brazilian Semi-Arid, meanwhile, was a collaborative science process orchestrated by WTT that resulted in the promotion of domestic water reuse technologies for family farming in the Brazilian semi-arid region and food preservation technology through a biofilm applied to fruit that responds to transportation and refrigeration problems faced by farmers. In 2023, WTT began working on the development of a new technology focused on the challenges faced by the Amazon nut chain.
The mappings, diagnoses and teams guided by this mission involve the participation of various actors, including farming families, small producers, local leaders and institutions such as INSA, ASA, PATAC, as well as universities and technology parks in the scientific teams. The methodology of these processes always values the dialog between popular and academic perspectives in order to foster a diverse and collective construction of knowledge.