Terms of reference – e-Waste Innovation Sprint

A virtual hackathon aimed at supporting the reprocessing of materials by facilitating the safe and environmentally sound movement of e-waste across borders.

Terms of reference – e-Waste Innovation Sprint 
Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation

Background information

The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (the Alliance) is a public-private partnership for trade-led growth, supporting governments in developing and least-developed countries in implementing the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement. Alliance projects cut through red tape and end costly delays at borders by bringing together governments and businesses of all sizes as equal partners to deliver targeted trade reforms.  

The Alliance is led by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the International Chamber of Commerce, and the World Economic Forum, in cooperation with Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). It is funded by the governments of the United States, Canada, Germany and Denmark.

Conceived as a “data-driven” initiative, the Alliance highly values the use of sound and reliable data and the piloting of innovative methodologies in order to target and design its projects and measure their impact. Within the context of growing population, modernisation and the increasing needs for electronic devices, the amount of electronic waste at the end-of-life for most devices in all parts of the world is increasing. At the same time, countries’ capacity to handle electronic and electrical waste (e-waste) can be limited, and there are a limited number of global facilities able to process such waste at the requisite quality and scale for re-integration into new products, leading to the need for its transboundary movement.

E-waste is defined as discarded electrical or electronical devices, e.g., mobile phones, tablet PCs, etc., destined for salvage recycling through material recovery. E-waste is classified based on its composition and components. Without proper collection and treatment, e-waste often ends up in landfills or artisanal mining, with devastating impacts on surrounding populations and the environment.

Rwanda is one of the first African countries that has established electronic waste policies and regulations and had them fully approved in 2016. To provide adequate infrastructure for recycling of e-waste, a new e-waste dismantling, and recycling facility was opened and is operated by a private sector company who runs the only state-of-the-art e-waste treatment facility in East Africa. Despite the prioritisation of the issue by the Government of Rwanda and the investment by private sector in the country, there remain several challenges to fully implement the e-waste policies and regulations in the country.

 

1. Objective

The program aims to identify and develop innovative projects to support the correct processing and recovery of electronic waste through enabling the cross-boundary movement of e-waste and strengthening e-waste collection and transport.

  • To bring forward innovative solutions for a more efficient collection and environmentally sound transboundary movement of e-waste by collaboration of all involved actors
  • Improve the functioning, streamline the logistic chains, and remove current bottlenecks
  • Create tools to facilitate exchange and establish an environment receptive to reflection and innovation

 

2. Methodology

The e-waste innovation sprint will be a purely virtual hackathon event taking place from 26th to 28th November 2021 (60 hours) with an official launch of the challenges on 14th October 2021, using a portfolio of online collaboration tools. It invites individuals and existing companies accompanied by domain experts, researchers, and academia to create most relevant and innovative solutions to challenges identified by the actors in the field of e-waste management.

The solutions shall meet criteria presented in common agreement with all the actors and stakeholders involved in the innovation process.

 

3. Deliverables

There are two main deliverables under this consultancy:

  1. Setting up and leading an appealing innovation sprint (hackathon) event, preparation of a retro-planning in terms of activities and timeline, proposing a communication plan and promotion of the event in the third party provider networks, preparation and conducting of a challenge announcement event (kick-off), the main innovation sprint event, and a demo day. Suggestions for incubation.
  2. Providing a virtual collaboration platform allowing the innovation sprint participants to build a team, select a challenge and to collaborate to find a solution to the presented challenges. Furthermore, this platform shall allow the teams to reach out to their dedicated mentors to receive feedback on their work and allow for judging the provided solution by the documented process of the solution.

 

4. Management, timeline and compensation

The third party provider procured under this ToR will be contracted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and will report to the Innovation Lead of the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation hosted at the WEF, who will serve as the main point of contact between the third party provider and the innovation sprint organisation team, providing all relevant documentation and assisting in setting up necessary connections and meetings.

The work will be conducted between September and December 2021, according to the timeline below and shall foresee the possibility of two workstreams (one for individuals and non-professional teams, and one for start-ups and existing businesses):

Activity Tasks Timeline
1)     Landing page providing information on the innovation sprint, the challenges and allows application of participants ·  Design and provide a landing page / website, to announce the innovation sprint, advertise, populate information on the event, promote mentors, speakers and other related activities

·  Promote two individual workstreams – one for professionals, e.g. existing start-ups and businesses, and one workstream for individuals or non-professional teams

·  Allows showcasing of the selected challenges

·  Provides the support of the inscription of the participants and their selection and team building

·  Constant updating of landing page with logos, mentor pictures & bios, other content

September 2021
2)     Project Management ·  Retro-Planning Project Plan, inputs for communication plan in collaboration with the Alliance’ Communication team

·  Event planning, deadlines, training moments

·  Intellectual Property in form of Terms & Condition

·  Participant, mentor and jury management, technical trouble shooting

·  Adjust platform, landing page and related communication to design provided by the Alliance on a constant basis

·  Keep motivation of teams up throughout the innovation sprint

·  Proposal on judging criteria

September 2021 and ongoing
3)     Challenge Announcement event ·  Creating an appealing challenge announcement event to present the selected challenges and facilitate the team matching and onboarding

·  Providing of necessary (technical) infrastructure

October 2021
4)     Provide a working platform for remote participation and collaboration ·  Preparation of collaboration platform for teams to collaborate, reach out to mentors, upload their solution – set up two individual workstreams (one for professionals, e.g. existing start-ups and businesses, and one for individuals or non-professional teams)

·  Technical support throughout the innovation sprint, especially during weekends

·  Participant, mentor and judges onboarding and trouble shooting

·  Logo and banner inclusion

·  Possible integration of SLACK and ZOOM videoconferencing, streaming of relevant events

·  Solution uploading and presentation

·  Summary of all projects on the platform

·  Dashboard / report on statistics

September 2021 and ongoing
5)     Demo day ·  Proposal on demo day structure, and the execution via virtual means

·  Brainstorming on incubation of the project

November / December 2021

 

5. Selection process

Third party providers (legal entities) are requested to submit the following by 15th September2021 to the Innovation and Hackathon Lead, Mrs. Ines Knäpper (ines.knaepper@weforum.org)

  1. Project outline (max 2 pages) describing the proposed methodology and approach
  2. Description of the online collaboration platform envisaged
  3. Three relevant virtual & two traditional (face-to-face) hackathon showcases
  4. Company profile
  5. Financial Proposal (in USD)