With the mindset to explore “how innovation can improve efforts to create a more peaceful and sustainable society”, C5 Capital, the specialist technology investment group, partnered with IPSI Institute and Creative Learning to host the Venture Peacebuilding Symposium on January 2nd and 23rd. The Symposium brought together in Washington DC 150 leaders in the areas of Impact Investing, Social Entrepreneurship and Peace.
The Symposium agenda was filled with seminars and talks such as “Peace Through an Economic Lens” and “Venture Peacebuilding—From Idea to Industry”, while panelists included Shamil Idriss, CEO of Search for Common Ground, Bulbul Gupta, CEO of Mighty Girl Ventures and Rebeen Pasha, CEO of StartUp Middle East, among many others from around the world involved in initiatives surrounding peace building.
In addition to the seminars and networking, attendees had the opportunity to engage with the entrepreneurs in C5’s Peacetech Accelerator via a startup showcase where demo tables displayed each startup’s business & tech. The demos fostered introductions and facilitated lead making with prospective clients, partners, and investors. Attendees were able to learn firsthand about innovations in the areas of peace, stability and security worldwide, according to a released statement.
“We seek to nurture and grow companies that are making a real difference. Being able to introduce them to the participants of this symposium and carry out a meaningful exchange of ideas and practices is very important to us and we’re looking forward to building even better relationships with the impact investment community that is critical to this ecosystem,” stated Eva-Maria Dimitriadis, COO of C5 Accelerate.
Gaining the support of investors and large corporations such as AWS that provide the necessary resources for the startups to scale is seen as a critical component for success. The Symposium brought these important stakeholders together, laying the groundwork for future initiatives.
“Impact investors and venture capital investors are increasingly pooling their investment capital to drive and scale innovation in Peacetech. The power of the AWS cloud provides unprecedented opportunities to make a difference in communities,” stated Andre Pienaar, Founder, C5 Capital.
The incoming cohort showcased at the Symposium and the third to enter the Accelerator included:
ICMEC: advocating, training and collaborating to eradicate child abduction, sexual abuse and exploitation.
OneRelief App: revolutionizing charitable donations through an app that collects micro-donations for humanitarian relief aid.
Pennywell: using small change to make a big difference.
SEaB Energy: the leading small waste-to-energy product. Transforming your waste on-site to make energy and fertilizer.
SuperFluid Labs: bringing tomorrow’s analytics capabilities to businesses today.
TerraBlue XT: building a complete Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, consisting of proprietary hardware and software to address key gaps in the understanding and management of chronic and neurological disorders.
