HCL-WEF fresh water initiative sees massive participation from startups in crisis-affected regions

In May, HCL Corporation partnered with UpLink, the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum, to announce the
five-year-long Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative. HCL Corporation, the parent entity of IT major HCLTech, has committed $15 million over a period of five years to support this initiative.

“We feel it’s really important that those technologies and solutions are not uniquely coming from, let’s say the Silicon Valley, or Western-focused ecosystems,” said John Dutton, Head of UpLink, World Economic Forum (WEF).

“We are excited to see that a majority of the entries are from Asia, Africa and South America which are markets that have been worst hit by the water crisis. We have over 25 entries from India alone,” said Dutton.

UpLink, an innovation platform led by the WEF, helps link startups solving global challenges to investor ecosystems. The platform runs competitions to address United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

Dutton added that the new innovation challenge in partnership with HCL Corp. focuses on water-related issues because most of the larger climate change-related concerns impact access to fresh water supply, especially in the global south.

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Potential clients for such startups/ entrepreneurs would be municipalities and businesses seeking to process freshwater from polluted water.
The program is designed to find and fund a new generation of ‘Aquapreneurs’, generally in the late seed to Series A maturity level.

“There’s only 2% of global philanthropy supporting causes for nature and climate. So, this catalytic funding that Roshni Nadar Malhotra and HCL Corp are providing is making a significant effort to increase that share,” said Sundar Mahalingam, President- Strategy at HCL Corporation.