The Brazilian Expertise Research Group (BRAERG) has dedicated itself to developing a highly efficient process for producing cellulosic ethanol, i.e. ethanol derived from breaking down cellulose chains. The disruptive factor of the procedure consisted of an unprecedented grouping of micro-organisms that provide an exceptional yield of chemical reactions in sugar cane bagasse and straw and, consequently, generate a lower environmental impact. With the support of WTT, BRAERG went on to develop a portfolio of innovations in the areas of biotechnology and pharmacology.

The Better Together Challenge was carried out by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and BIDLab on the theme of migration. The project aimed to select innovative solutions to problems related to the Venezuelan migrant diaspora in 10 countries in the region.

In order to enrich the range of proposals and participants, WTT joined the project at the invitation of the Avina Foundation to use its expertise to map organizations, initiatives and people who had the potential to submit creative projects for the challenge. This active search within the call demonstrates the versatility of the innovation services provided by WTT throughout its history.

As part of the project coordinated by the Avina Foundation with funding from BIDLab, WTT held a challenge in Salvador (Brazil) to promote technological and sustainable initiatives linked to the circular economy.

Through an open call, the selected projects were: GBcycle, which contributes to water and sewage treatment, Combra Food, which is dedicated to digitally integrating small producers into the food supply chain, and Wakanda, which promotes women’s financial autonomy.

The challenge developed and coordinated by WTT arose from the Regional Network of Resilient Cities, created by the Avina Foundation in partnership with the Resilient Cities Network. Once the challenge in Salvador was over, WTT also held a workshop in Buenos Aires on the challenge methodology so that the Argentine capital could manage its own project and call.

WTT’s participation in the initiative resulted in the systematization of the Resilient Cities process and the application of a system modeling methodology to identify how and what the potential impact of the innovative solutions selected in each of the challenges would be in each of the cities.

Water+ (Água+) was WTT’s first project using the impact challenge methodology – a logic that has subsequently influenced various other initiatives by the organization throughout its history. Started in 2017, Água+ sought to invert the vector of innovation and started from local challenges to look for innovative solutions that responded to problems that social organizations and territories experience on a daily basis.

Thus, WTT created an open call to select innovative solutions to the challenges of community water management in the Amazon and the Brazilian semi-arid region. In the community model, the communities themselves self-manage their supply systems. The call received more than 100 applications, 7 of which were selected to be implemented in different locations and by different field organizations.

The projects ranged from photovoltaic water pumping technologies to innovations dedicated to water quality treatment in the semi-arid region. Água+ was carried out between 2017 and 2021 with funding from the Coca-Cola Institute and the participation of allies such as the Avina Foundation, Sisar Institute, CPCD, Centrais da Bahia, Amazonas Sustainable Foundation, Health and Happiness Project, among others.

WTT’s first project with food systems and agroecology, the Sustainable Cotton Challenge allowed important relationships to be built with partners who would become key to WTT in the following years. As with Água+, the Sustainable Cotton project followed the logic of impact challenge, this time focusing on cotton production in agroecological consortium based on the work of the NGO Esplar and farmers’ associations.

As well as being a pioneer in working with agroecological cotton, Esplar is an organization that works with the Participatory Guarantee System (SPG), recognized by the Brazilian Government. In this system, by following a series of criteria, farmers achieve organic certification in a self-managed way.

In view of the social and productive challenges facing these farmers in the Sertão Central and Sertão dos Crateús (Ceará, semi-arid region in Brazil), WTT carried out diagnoses, an open call for innovations and pilots of solutions on site. One of the distinguishing features of the challenge methodology implemented by WTT is that it goes into the field to invest in pilots, encourage experimentation, and coordinate processes for improving and adapting solutions so that the functionality of the proposals evolves even after the formal closure of the project.

Implemented between 2018 and 2019 with funding from the C&A Institute, Susntable Cotton piloted projects ranging from a manual cotton harvester to a management system for cotton associations.

The Advanced Innovation Center (AIC) has developed a highly efficient water purification technology. The Plasma Water Sanitation System requires no chemical inputs and therefore generates no effluents. The technology uses only a minimal amount of energy, making it a sustainable and effective solution to various water-related problems. The project represents a significant initial moment in WTT’s trajectory and its first work with disruptive technologies.

Chaco Innova was born in 2021 from the collaboration between WTT and the Nanum Mujeres Conectadas trinational project, which operates in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay. Using the impact challenge methodology, WTT and Nanum developed the Chaco Innova open call with funding from BIDLab to select innovative solutions that could be built with local actors based on the traditional knowledge of the people who live in the Gran Chaco region.

The challenge focused on three main areas: climate adaptation, commercialization and institutional strengthening.

Projects were received from 42 organizations, 5 of which were selected to implement pilots: Wingu (Argentina), whose project consists of a handicraft marketing system and the digital transformation of communities; Fundación Capital (Paraguay), which is dedicated to female empowerment through financial education and inclusion; Caminnos (Bolivia), which proposes working with the art of communities through blockchain, offering unique digital pieces to strengthen artistic production and ancestral knowledge of the Chaco; AdApp (trinational), a project that consists of a collaborative rainfall and hydrological data system to generate flood alerts, as well as providing access to a management calendar and good practices for goat and beekeeping activities carried out by women in the territory; and finally, Comagua, a data platform on water management and planning for isolated communities developed together with Ingeniero Sin Fronteras Argentina.

In addition to the pilots, WTT is the innovation focal point organization of the Nanum network of organizations and seeks to create bridges between the Gran Chaco Americano and Innovation Ecosystems across the continent.

El proyecto de la tecnología de biopelícula está coordinado por WTT y desarrollado en colaboración con el Instituto Nacional del Semiárido (INSA). La iniciativa busca resolver un desafío que enfrentan los pequeños agricultores de la región semiárida: la pérdida de frutas después de la cosecha.

Las altas temperaturas de la región, junto con problemas de transporte y refrigeración, hacen que muchas frutas producidas por pequeños agricultores se descarten si no se comercializan en un corto plazo después de la cosecha. La biopelícula desarrollada extiende la vida útil de estos alimentos y puede ser producida y aplicada por los propios agricultores, lo que la convierte en una innovación accesible y práctica para las comunidades rurales. Además, la tecnología utiliza como materia prima el mucílago del nopal forrajero, una planta de bajo costo y abundante en la región, que puede convertirse en una nueva fuente de ingresos para los cultivadores.

Además del INSA, la Universidad Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG) y la Incubadora de Impacto Social (IACOC) de la Fundación Parque Tecnológico de Paraíba (PaqTcPB) forman parte del proyecto. Orientar los esfuerzos hacia innovaciones en el ámbito de la agricultura familiar es una estrategia que responde a diversos desafíos socioambientales contemporáneos, como la protección de la biodiversidad, la garantía de la seguridad alimentaria, el estímulo a la generación de ingresos, la lucha contra la pobreza y el fortalecimiento de la adaptación y mitigación de los efectos de la crisis climática. Con esta perspectiva, la biopelícula y otras tecnologías están siendo desarrolladas o perfeccionadas en los arreglos orquestados por WTT.

Lea aquí la entrevista con Anderson Formiga, investigador del proyecto.

El desafío de la pérdida de frutas después de la cosecha se diagnosticó en un proceso amplio, colaborativo y participativo narrado en la publicación “Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación con el Semiárido Brasileño”, disponible para descarga en Publicaciones.

Polypropylene is a polymer that can be molded at high temperatures and is used in the production of packaging, household products, automotive parts, among other applications.

Given the importance of this material in the industrial hub of Manaus and the possibilities that products from the Amazon’s sociobiodiversity offered for developing a more sustainable solution compared to conventional plastics, a special team from various organizations came together to develop the first bioplastic made from Brazil nut waste.

The research was conducted by a special team of scientists from the State University of Amazonas, the Federal University of Paraná, and the Federal University of Viçosa, who worked together combining complementary knowledge to develop this solution. On the industrial side of the project was Tutiplast, a company specialized in plastic injection molding, which receives the material and injects it into different types of objects.

The raw material that arrives in Manaus comes from different regions of the Lábrea municipality, also in Amazonas. The work with the riverside and indigenous communities that collect the Brazil nut husk is coordinated by the Association of Agroextractivist Producers of the Sardinha Colony (ASPACS) and Idesam, which also coordinated the mapping of various supply chains for the project. The communities were already working with the collection of Brazil nut kernels and now have a new and important source of complementary income through the work with the husks.

The structuring of this sophisticated and diverse arrangement of actors was coordinated by World-Transforming Technologies, an organization that had already conducted previous studies, such as “Amazonian Bioeconomy” and “The Future of Bioplastics Has Roots in the Amazon,” which pointed to the impacts that this orchestration could bring to the region.

The project was funded by the Bioeconomy Priority Program (PPBio) of the Manaus Free Trade Zone Superintendence (Suframa), coordinated by Idesam, with resources from the JBS Amazon Fund administered by WTT.

WTT has been dedicated to developing an innovative solution to address the challenges related to the demands of communities involved in the Amazon nut value chain. Interviews with key stakeholders in the Amazon region have already been conducted by experts to identify technological bottlenecks and ensure that the solution developed is both appropriate and contextually relevant. A special innovation arrangement will be articulated to research, develop, and disseminate this new technology. The project aligns with WTT’s vision for the bioeconomy, viewing it as an economy capable of sustainably harnessing natural potential, promoting the conservation of biomes, and generating well-being for local populations through employment and income.

The search for alternatives to coexist with drought in the Brazilian Semi-Arid region has been ongoing for a long time, and therefore, there are various technologies for reusing so-called greywater. However, this reuse is not always done safely, especially for those who use the system, and there are often data gaps about the quality of the reused water. In this context, the multidisciplinary project for developing the Greywater Reuse System by Dual Filtrat aims to contribute. The techology consists of a system that collects, filters, and redistributes the water used at home (except for toilet water) for the family’s agroecological production.

Currently, the project is in the monitoring phase of the Bioagua pilot systems, implemented in the homes of nine families from three communities in the state of Paraíba. The development of technology for the safe reuse of water, aimed at the agroecological production of families, is part of WTT’s efforts to promote innovative, accessible, and contextually relevant solutions for the challenges of family farming mapped in the Semi-Arid region.

Under the coordination of WTT, the initiative’s arrangement includes, on the Research and Development front, the National Institute of the Semi-Arid (INSA), the Paraíba Technology Park Foundation (PaqTcPB), and the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE). Fieldwork with families and communities is carried out by the Appropriate Technology Application Program for Communities (PATAC), Cultural Action Center (CENTRAC), Agreste Leadership Forum (FOLIA), AS-PTA Agroecology, Borborema Hub (POLO), Regional Collective of Family Farming Organizations (COLETIVO). Additionally, a series of training activities on greywater reuse was coordinated by the Regional Institute for Appropriate Smallholder Agriculture (IRPAA), which is also part of the project.

Through its potential to integrate public policies and, thus, gain scale, Bioagua also benefits from WTT’s efforts through the New Policies program.

The challenge of greywater reuse faced in the region was diagnosed through a broad, collaborative, and participatory process, which is narrated in the publication “Science, Technology and Innovation in the Brazilian Semi-Arid,” available for download in Publications.