Winners of the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Supply Chain Innovation Challenge were presented with their awards, Tuesday evening at Ilaro Court.
Tadiwanashe Mutibura from Harare, Zimbabwe, won the Supply Chain Innovation Challenge with her proposal “Solar-powered locker-sized booths for small-scale cross-border traders”.
The Private Sector Award went to Cristina Martin from Madrid, Spain, for her proposal “USYNCRO, a Blockchain and AI Platform to Impulse Digital Logistics Corridors Worldwide”.
The Supply Chain Innovation Challenge was conceptualised to leverage participants’ collective creativity, inspiring them to suggest innovative solutions to global supply chain operations and how to make them greener, more efficient, and resilient.
“It definitely was a very, very humbling experience because, for me, I’m not yet quite in the industry. This was more based on a gap that I saw in the industry and the things that needed to be addressed.
“So, in general, you find young people typically aren’t willing to jump forward, because even after I won, I was feeling like, there’s no way they picked my thing over everyone else. So, just be confident, and like my dad likes to say, ‘fail hard, fail fast’. Because, that way you’ve overcome that ‘what if’; what if you put out a solution? If it doesn’t work, move on to the next thing because you don’t know who it’s going to affect,” Ms. Mutibura said on winning the challenge.
Meanwhile, Ms. Martin said: “It’s a great honour to be here having this award because we have been working in digital corridors with blockchain and artificial intelligence for six years. So, this is a recognition of our hard work …. But the most important thing is for organisations and governments to hear about our concepts and want to be as diverse between the different regions. So, for me, it’s a dream to be here, and I give thanks to Rebecca.”
UNCTAD’s Head of the Trade Logistics Branch, Jan Hoffmann, who led the judging panel, shared that 75 proposals were received within the period January 17 to 17 March; and they were evaluated based on the following criteria – level of innovation, feasibility, scalability, sustainability, and resilience.
“The wide range of creative and innovative ideas that were shared with us are a further motivation to invest in sustainable and resilient supply chains for future generations,” Mr. Hoffman said.