Grow Asia 
Design and Implementation of Grow Asia Innovation Challenge 2025
Request for Proposal

Introduction

Grow Asia is seeking proposals from experienced partners to support the successful delivery of the Grow Asia Innovation Challenge 2025. The contract duration will be from 15 January 2025 to 31 August 2025.

In 2022, Grow Asia launched four public-private impact funds to accelerate the transformation of Southeast Asia’s agri-food system to become more efficient, sustainable, and resilient to the twin shocks of economic volatility and climate change. Together, these new blended-finance models serve as a co-matching mechanism between public and private-sector donors and investors, aiming to break down silos and improve the efficiency of capital flows into Southeast Asia’s food, agriculture, and forestry sectors by targeting the needs of the region’s 70 million small-scale rural enterprises. 

Grow Asia’s newest Innovation Challenge will be funded by the GrowVentures Fund, which is designed to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart innovations and digital tools across Southeast Asia by placing affordable solutions into the hands of farmers and agri-SMEs.   Despite a global smart farming market that is expected to reach USD 66.9 billion by 2030, the innovation landscape in Southeast Asia remains highly fragmented, with farmgate adoption remaining stubbornly slow due to well-reported financial barriers, market failures, and supply chain inefficiencies.  Most companies and governments recognize that tackling these siloed delivery systems requires an innovation ecosystem involving multiple stakeholders, who can collectively unlock capacity and investments in agri-food innovation and get these technologies into the hands of farmers.

In 2024, Grow Asia launched its Grow Asia Innovation Challenge (GAIC), targeting the rice value chain in Southeast Asia with a major focus on digital solutions in Vietnam and Cambodia. The challenge received almost 100 submitted ready-to-scale solutions across the globe. The GAIC 2024 focused on leveraging farm-ready technologies to enable smallholder-inclusive, climate-resilient agricultural transformation, empowering smallholder farmers to improve productivity, market access, and climate resilience for agri-SMEs in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the Mekong region.

CarbonFarm was selected among the high-quality solutions with their innovative approach to science-backed technology—using AI and satellite data to verify sustainable practices from space, quantify emissions reductions, and streamline the Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) process. This enhances transparency and trust in carbon claims with increased transparency that attracts investments from project funders and carbon buyers, accelerating the shift towards sustainable rice farming.

Coming off the successes of the Grow Asia Innovation Challenge 2024, Grow Asia and the Philippines Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture (PPSA) will be launching the Grow Asia Innovation Challenge 2025. The innovation challenge aims to address the following challenges in support of industry development of coconut, cacao and coffee sectors:

• Farmer Traceability and Logistics Tools: Enhance product traceability systems to provide stronger logistical support and monitoring for farmers and farmer organizations. Improved traceability for deforestation-free products for compliance with sustainability standards and access to premiums and certifications.

• Digital Advisory Solutions: Improve access to and benefit from digital decision-making tools that enable the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices across smallholders & agri-SMEs.

• Strengthening Technology Adoption: Facilitate farmer digital literacy and promote technology adoption with user-friendly innovations tailored for farmers.

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The Grow Asia Innovation Challenge 2025

The Grow Asia Innovation Challenge (GAIC) aims to catalyse partnerships and facilitate pilots among existing start-ups, agribusinesses, and smallholder farmers that foster climate-smart agriculture. In 2025, Grow Asia is bringing GAIC to the Philippines with the goal to:

1. Engage start-ups and agribusinesses to build and or adapt existing solutions for smallholder value chains in the country;

2. Accelerate the growth of promising start-ups, catalysing partnerships and facilitating pilots among existing start-ups, agribusinesses, and smallholders; and

3. Build the local and regional pool of innovators and accelerate the adoption of climate-smart innovations and digital tools across Southeast Asia through the Grow Asia Digital Directory and Digital Learning Series.

What do we need?

We are looking for a trusted, full-service innovation partner to work with Grow Asia to design and implement the GAIC. Grow Asia will lead the overall project design in collaboration with members of the Grow Asia Business Council and Partners’ Advisory Council. The contracted party will be invited to co-design and execute the Challenge process in consultation with the Grow Asia Secretariat with deliverables including, but not limited to, the following indicative activities: 

• Alignment with Grow Asia on timelines, deliverables, and proposed scope of work

• Design of challenge rules, tools and processes, including eligibility criteria, guidelines and templates for applications, mentors and judges, etc.

• Briefing of judging panel and innovation mentors in collaboration with Grow Asia

• Co-design and planning of public launch and call for applications

• Management of appropriate micro-site to collect and process applications 

• Processing and shortlisting of eligible applications in collaboration with Grow Asia

• Management of evaluation process and support for finalists

• Coordination of mentoring and assistance with Pitching Event(s)

• Co-organization of the human-centered design training for finalists

• Co-organization of the Pitching and Award Event in collaboration with Grow Asia

• Review of GAIC implementation and next steps 

• Recommendations for ongoing technical support and brokering opportunities (this could include a review of Grow Asia’s Digital Directory and Learning Series; identifying potential sources of seed funds for pilots, and design of Grow Asia’s human-centered design training activities)

Eligible Solutions:

To be able to address the challenges of the coconut, coffee and cacao sectors while meeting the needs of the farmers, digital solutions may be clustered into the following categories:

• Digital Advisory Tools that promote Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) (e.g. water management systems, soil health monitoring, integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management tools, etc.)

• Business development and marketability – to enhance market access through digital trading platforms, traceability and certification systems and mobile sourcing solutions; to improve supply chain efficiency and smart logistics; to provide finance and information services such as mobile payment, digital lending, market prices, weather information, technical services and early warning systems, etc.

• Telco-agnostic Agricultural Solution: Initiatives aimed at enhancing digital literacy among farmers and championing the adoption of intuitive technological solutions specifically designed for their needs such as improving planning processes and effectively managing the costs and financing of farming operations, ultimately empowering farmers to optimize their productivity and profitability.

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Deadline for Quotes

Quotes should be submitted for the attention of Erica Sale, Regional Manager, Programs,  Grow Asia at erica@growasia.org no later than 13 December 2024. Learn more below.