BackMarket’s digital marketplace for refurbished electronics helps coordinate stakeholders to close the loop on e-waste and open up access to reliable tech for all. The platform connects buyers and sellers of smartphones, laptops, TVs, wearables, gaming, e-mobility, and countless other devices from all the leading manufacturers. Promising “better than new,” it partners with certified refurbishers to repair electronics for resale, at a ~70% lower price than new. The digital platform helps coordinate discovery, customer service, payment, logistics, tracking, a 25+ point quality assurance verification of authenticity, functionality, security, data erasure, battery, testing, cleaning, and more; and manages partners to refurbish products. Refurbished devices reduce an average of ~90% raw material extraction, emissions, water use, and waste relative to new devices.
- circular economy
- digital platforms
- e-waste
- electronics
- mobile devices
- refurbishment
Openbike is a project by Arquimaña, an architecture studio founded by Iñaki Albistur and Raquel Ares in 2011. They combine their passion for design, maker culture and mobile architecture (mobitechture) with the idea that technology can make us freer, more proactive and more creative. The result is their open-source bicycle and it's impact in promoting sustainable urban transportation. Openbike has been finalist in Arquia-Próxima 2018: Relevant Practices and part of the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 and the Cities exhibition of the Seoul Architecture and Urbanism Biennale SBAU2021 curated by Dominique Perrault.
- bicycle infrastructure
- mobility
- open source
- transportation
DoNotPay utilizes artificial intelligence to help consumers fight against large corporations and solve their problems, like beating parking tickets, appealing bank fees, and stopping robocallers. DoNotPay’s goal is to foster equity and equality by making legal information and self-help accessible
- artificial intelligence
- cloud
- data
- digital assets
- edge computing
Earth Species Project is a non-profit research lab and impact organization focused on using artificial intelligence to advance our understanding of animal communication, and ultimately to decode non-human languages. The organization is founded on the belief that understanding non-human languages will transform how we perceive the world and our relationship with the rest of nature. Their work involves developing machine learning models to interpret animal sounds and movements. While "decoding" communications are a long-term objective, the ESP supports other organizations along the way by supplementing animal and ecological research; supporting existing conservation efforts; and contributing to the fields of ethology, bioacoustics, and machine learning by making their research public.
- animals
- artificial intelligence
- bioacoustics
- conservation
- ethology
Fairphone is an electronics manufacturer that produces smartphones and headphones, focusing on social and environmental improvments across the entire mobile device value chain: mining, design, manufacturer, and lifecycle. They are focused on circumventing the use of conflict minerals and mining practices by prioritizing ethical sourcing of materials and fair labor practices and using recycled materials wherever possible; on designing for modularity, circularity, longevity and easy repair; and on reducing electronic waste. They also prioritize transparency, openly sharing information about suppliers and working conditions, enabling new relationships between people and their products, and prioritizing user data controls.
- circular economy
- electronics
- mobile devices
- modularity
Hylo is a community-led, prosocial coordination platform for purpose-driven groups. It is open-source, non-profit, and driven by participatory design with real-world groups at the forefront of regenerative agriculture, community resilience, peer learning, equity, inclusive capital, and place-based organizing. Hylo features a resilient constellation of relationships marked by trust and accountability, with clear agreements including protocols for decision making, distributing resources, and handling conflict. The platform has many unique aspects such as nested groups and cross-group posting, which lead to emergent cooperation between groups, generating broader coalitions with more power to address common goals. Hylo's community leaders and facilitators help guide member groups on best practices in community stewardship. Hylo is built through relationship-driven development, involving collaboration with the community to co-design tools to amplify their work.
- cloud
- community
- data
- digital platforms
The Indigenous Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Working Group is a program focused on the intersection of artificial intelligence and Indigenous knowledge systems. The project’s interdisciplinary team of experts includes 37 co-investigators and collaborators who come from eight universities and 12 Indigenous community-based organizations in Canada, the United States and New Zealand. Most of the team members are Indigenous. They are motivated to expand the definition of intelligence by collaborating with Indigenous communities to integrate their knowledge systems with the AI research and development ecosystem to develop more integrated and practical approaches to building the next generation of A.I. systems.
- artificial intelligence
- indigenous peoples
- traditional ecological knowledge
Pol.is is an open source platform that facilitates group decision-making by allowing large numbers of people to share ideas and opinions on a topic. Polis' real-time system gathers the contributions of large groups, and then leverages advanced statistics and machine learning algorithms to analyze the collective input and surface points of consensus and where areas of dissent occur. Unlike some social media platforms, Pol.is aims to encourage constructive dialogue and bridge-building rather than amplify existing divides. Pol.is helps groups identify common ground and reach collaborative solutions in areas like policy development, market research, and community planning. As an open-source tool available to all, Polis is already adopted by various groups including governments, academics, independent media outlets, and everyday citizens. Anyone can access, modify, and contribute to the Pol.is code base, ensuring transparency and fostering continuous development.
- democracy
- digital platforms
- gift economy
- governance
- participatory decision-making
Matriark Foods is a social impact business that upcycles farm surplus and fresh-cut remnants into healthy, low sodium vegetable products for schools, hospitals, food banks and other foodservices. Matriark works with farmers and aggregators to make use of the vegetables that would otherwise go to waste, to instead provide nutritious food for people and reduce the environmental harms of food waste. They are using technology to manage their supply chains, inventory, sustainability tracking, and data analysis to underpin auditability of Upcycle Certified products.
- certifications
- circular economy
- food waste
- foodtech
- supply chain traceability
Relier is a company tackling plastic waste in the produce industry through the upcycling of grapevine shoots. Relier's unique approach transforms discarded grapevine shoots into a sustainable biomaterial for packaging. This innovative material offers several benefits, including delaying fruit ripening, inhibiting microbial growth, and protecting produce during transport. Relier uses AI to analyze different recipe mixtures and percentages to obtain thermal, mechanical, and rheological behavioral to model the behavior of the clamshell, resulting in thousands of possibilities depending on the “how much” and “how” the components are mixed. Relier's biomaterial aims to be a more eco-friendly alternative to traditional plastic clamshell containers.
- agricultural tech
- artificial intelligence
- bioplastics
- bioremediation
- composting recycling
- data
- reduced food waste
Socialbnb is an online platform that allows people to book accommodations that support social and environmental projects around the world, and connect travelers with local communities in ways that directly support local economies and causes. Each overnight "Impact Stay" supports a social or ecological project and travelers can also book "Impact Trips," which are multi-day trips that combine socialbnb accommodations with activities. Socialbnb currently has 6 different types of projects: Nature conservation, animal welfare, education, health, equality or sports.
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
- rentals
- sharing economy
- travel
Junglefy is a company specializes in designing, installing, and maintaining living infrastructure, which are green walls, roofs, facades, and other gardens integrated into buildings or structures. They combine scientific research, biological design, and sensing and monitoring technology to create nature-based solutions to enhance the air quality, carbon sequestration, aesthetics, and improve wellbeing of people in and around built environments. Junglefy offers a full service suite, including financing, planning, co-benefits design, customization, installation, analytics and reporting, maintenance and removal of green waste.
- air quality
- built environment
- cities
- construction
- enterprise
- nature-based solutions
