In 2018, The United Nations Environment Program(UNEP) invited TIV’s president to lead a discussion on Innovation Promotion towards Climate Change at a Global Environment Facility  Workshop.

In March of 2018, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) held a Science and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) workshop, inviting international leaders from academia, NGOs and the private sector to work together towards developing strategies to combat climate change. TIV’s president, Dr. Atul Wad, was tasked with presenting his expert opinion, and coordinating a discussion on Innovation Promotion. The presentation explored foundational tactics towards climate change innovation efforts. Namely, that the innovation apparatus of choice must be able to leverage existing networks of development agencies, promote novel polices and introduce technological advancements to their targets of interest.

Moreover, Dr. Wad elaborated on challenges, such as how innovation can be impeded by a lack of venture and risk capital, with a need for organizations to divert their focus from debt to equity investment. Dr. Wad also advised the adoption of reformed approach, such as allocating a lesser fraction of typical GEF efforts on traditional technologies, e.g.  clean energy, while investigating the utility of novel technologies. For example, the use of blockchain and ICT has innovative use cases, such as: 1. remote sensing to help pastoral herders and 2. the use of tracking devices to aid wildlife conservation efforts. This collaboration by TIV and other participants culminated in a joint GEF and UN Environment publication, “Innovation and the GEF: A STAP document.” The study made multiple cross-cutting recommendations at the intersection of environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency and longevity of results.