Zoellick Visits DM2008
.jpg)
Among the visitors to 2008 Global Development Marketplace: Sustainable Agriculture for Development today was World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.
He's shown here with competition team winner Hannes Dempewolf of the University of British Columbia, who is part of Bioversity International's $200,000 project in Trinidad and Tobago that will use cutting-edge genomics "to identify and distinguish rare cocoa cultivars from ordinary beans."
The beneficiaries will be subsistence farmers who will sell their enhanced beans to discriminating consumers at premium prices.
Printer-friendly version
Comments
The DM2008 experience
From the perspective of one of the winners, I would like to compliment all the World Bank staff (too many to mention) for their extraordinary professionalism during all phases of the DM2008 competition. I feel keenly for the 78 finalists who didn't win a grant despite the high standard of their proposals but I think we all benefited from the accompanying program that was so well organised to complement the competition. The spirit of international inclusiveness that pervaded the whole week was a joy to experience. I also valued this rare opportunity to meet many of the non-competitor participants in the Innovation sessions, allowing future networking on a scale of impact I've never experienced before. As our success only emerged very late in the announcement of the winners, I do have some idea of how those who weren't so fortunate would have felt --- particularly as I had no recollection at all of having our photograph taken for display on the wide screens. But I have no doubt that every one of the Finalists will prove eventual winners, given the quality of innovations. What a privilege it was to partiicpate!
Development Marketplace Brand
I think one of the most important things about the DM is the brand that seems it has created around its event because the press coverage and the recognition of the price is going to be very useful to tap more resources and scale up the ideas. That is why I think is very important to maintain a close relation with the DM Team and other departments of the World Bank after the DM 2008 event, for those who did not got the prize, because that is going to help them with other organizations to secure further funding. My absolute gratitude to all the DM Team 2008 for their outstanding organization, support and kindness.
Rodrigo Martinez
Organization of American States
Post new comment