HCL partners with WEF, commits $15 million to address global freshwater insecurity

The company said on Tuesday that this will be done through a program titled the ‘Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative’.

HCL has partnered with UpLink, the open innovation platform of the World Economic Forum that connects highly promising startups with the partners and funding they need to scale.

“Today, freshwater resources globally are extremely burdened and every fifth child on this planet faces water scarcity,” said Roshni Nadar Malhotra, CEO of HCL Group and Chairperson of . “Our partnership with World Economic Forum’s UpLink platform is a step in this direction and our ecosystem approach can be truly transformative.”

She said this will not only encourage and scale innovations in this critical area, but also help build capacity among aquapreneurs to execute on innovative solutions. Through the Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative, HCL is “re-committing to accelerate multi-stakeholder collaboration and innovation in the global freshwater conservation space,” she added.

The environment, sustainability and governance (ESG) solutions market, estimated to touch $50 billion by 2030, could emerge as the next big growth driver for domestic IT services providers.

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(), , and are offering their solutions – gleaned from years of best practices — to clients looking to go green.

For instance, TCS is currently working with the UN Global Compact to pilot a carbon footprint management tool for enterprise customers across Europe and the Asia Pacific region. UN is connecting TCS to target customers for this initiative.

With the global population set to hit 8.5 billion by 2030, pressure is increasing on the world’s limited supply of freshwater. By 2030, the global demand for water will have exceeded sustainable supply by 40%.

In addition to dire consequences to people’s health and food production, a lack of access to clean water can limit economic growth by up to one-third, as well as have adverse effects on natural biodiversity and the social fabric.

HCL’s collaboration with UpLink will encompass building the freshwater innovation ecosystem including: running innovation challenges to source solutions from ‘aquapreneurs’ (water focused entrepreneurs), connecting these aquapreneurs to existing initiatives and water networks, unlocking funding opportunities to scale their ventures and raising awareness on the global agenda on the importance of freshwater.

UpLink has now run more than 30 challenges and identified over 260 entrepreneurs with innovative solutions for the world’s most pressing issues.

“The Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative comes at a critical time,” said Olivier Schwab, managing director, World Economic Forum. “With water scarcity enveloping regions around the world, we need to fast-track progress within the freshwater sector and build security for people and planet.”

Schwab said HCL’s collaboration with UpLink will harness and drive forward the solutions of the world’s top innovators, connecting them to the initiatives and networks which can see them scale and drive transformational change for the world’s most fragile water systems.