Innovation Break - Week of 1/6/25
Innovation Ecosystems, AI & the Circular Economy, the Food Security Imperative
Every week Anim8 Collective curates insights into business growth and strategy, emerging technology, leadership and change management, networking and collaboration, and sustainability. Take an Innovation Bre8k with these top picks!
This week, we covered:
🌟 Building Stronger Innovation Ecosystems
🌍 Can AI Help Turn Our Disposable Economy into a Circular One?
🥘 Food and the Future: Why Security is a Global and Local Imperative
This week’s post is written from the perspective of Anim8 Collective founder, Sarah O’Sell’s experiences.
🌟 Building Stronger Innovation Ecosystems
In 2018, I began mapping innovation ecosystems to target my networking efforts. Over time, I’ve gained a reputation for knowing exactly who you need to connect with and yes, I may even have a spreadsheet 🤓.
Today, I’ve upgraded from manual mapping to data science tools, but this first project remains one of my proud achievements.
📸 The image above showcases the Robotics Startup Ecosystem. These maps aren’t just diagrams—they’re strategic tools that include:
🏫 Universities & research institutions
🏛️ Government agencies
🤝 Industry collaborations
💸 Investors & corporate buyers
🌍 Impacted stakeholders
Using open-source biology software, I performed centrality analysis to prioritize connections and optimize collaboration. These maps reveal network dynamics, like when I uncovered a shark advisor covertly helping a competitor.
📖 Check out this World Economic Forum article.
They outline how companies can create ecosystems to help with digital and sustainable transformations and emphasizes how ecosystems strengthen innovation.
💡 My Theory:
A network's strength directly impacts innovation’s acceleration and resilience. Applying network modeling within a tech-enabled investment framework ensures intentional, targeted collaboration.
🎯 Key Takeaways:
▪️Assign a titled, funded core ecosystem leader with IT/Data Science support for KPIs.
▪️Use function-based agents to steward programs—think “community gardeners.” These dedicated "gardeners" help to break silos, enabling innovation to flow across departments or communities while quickly translating winning tactics into action.
▪️Recognize innovation as a horizontal function, especially in: AI applications, sustainability, and organizational culture
Shoutouts to my favorite innovation ecosystem builders:
Elizabeth Scallon at Find Ventures is a key innovation catalyst for the PNW and beyond and supports under-resourced entrepreneurs
Jason Scott has many awesome initiatives around empowering diverse founders, sustainability, and tech🔥and is a prolific connector for impact-minded founders
Lisa Morales-Hellebo and Brian Laung Aoaeh started REFASHIOND Ventures and are launching REFASHIOND OS as a tech-enabled fashion supply chain "operating system" with sustainability in mind
Deborah Dull is Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for Circular Supply Chains and founder of the Circular Supply Chain Network - catch her at a city or conference near you!
Solitaire Townsend at Futerra is inspiring Solutionists around the world to focus and find their unique strengths to make the Anthropocene awesome
🌍 Can AI Help Turn Our Disposable Economy into a Circular One?
In 2017, I first discovered the circular economy - a framework to reduce waste and design smarter systems. 📸 Me presenting at the Global Artificial Intelligence Conference in 2019. Today, progress is visible, but urgency has never been greater.
📜 I recommend this Reuters article.
📈 Did you know?
28% of all materials used since 1900 were consumed in just the last 5 years. This shocking acceleration demands innovative solutions.
🔄 The Good News:
Awareness of circular economy principles is at an all-time high. However, most discussions still focus on waste recovery and recycling.
💡 The Bigger Opportunity?
AI can help shift the focus to reducing, reusing, repairing, and remanufacturing with:
🧠 Smarter Design: AI enables engineers to design products and materials optimized for circularity while maintaining functionality.
🚀 Business Model Innovation: AI powers rental models, modular upgrade matching, and data-driven systems enable product or part-specific granular efficiency.
♻️ Circular Infrastructure: From managing digital product passports to intelligent material recovery, AI can connect consumers and businesses to ideal circular solutions.
On Our Radar - Top AI x Circular Economy Innovators:
Comstock Inc. Quantum Generative Materials (GenMat) simulation solution is developing AI that can help enable recycled metal material development
X, The Moonshot Factory (Rachel Payne) is working on machine vision technology for material recovery facilities (MRFs) that scans pieces of plastic packaging and identifies their molecular composition in real-time
Mateo Neri is an advisor to ECGO, a mobile app for consumers that helps determine the recyclability of materials using photos
Sheri R. Hinish is a Circular Supply Chain expert and contributor to AI for Good as well as host of the popular Supply Chain Revolution podcast covering these topics and more!
Ritu Raj is the Head of Sustainability Technology for Unilever - it's rare to see sustainability roles focus on technology. I'm happy to see they have circular systems as a priority. I advocate for all sustainability teams to have a dedicated technology expert to introduce innovation, scale, and track the ROI of initiatives across the organization and beyond.
🚩🌱I recognize the recent merger with the communications team here and warnings from the community about greenwashing + delayed action risk. As someone who works in both MarTech and Sustainability, I want to note that both functions are at the bottom of the executive list of priorities. As a former industrial design engineer who pivoted careers due to a lack of influence and authority, I know that sustainability is a technical function. No company should combine these roles. As someone who strives to connect customer data with the ROI of sustainability action to drive further investment, this merger could recognize a positive outcome, but data to back claims is essential. I hope this tech function is not restructured too!✌️
Google’s Robert Little leads the "CircularNet" program which has partnered with Recykal.com which is an AI-backed digital marketplace for managed waste commerce
Brian Winship and Joe Ayrookaran of WorkbenchX are developing a "Scanbench" AI vision solution to help detect the condition of industrial parts and matchmake with next-cycle circular economy routing such as reuse, repair, and remanufactured
🥘 Food and the Future: Why Security is a Global and Local Imperative
As a home chef, I’ve felt the sting of rising food prices—especially for staples like olive oil. These aren't just inconveniences; they’re signals of growing vulnerabilities in food systems.
This Financial Times article highlights food and agriculture as global challenges requiring local investments. Food security isn’t just policy—it’s an investment priority.
💡 Top Priorities for Investors & Policymakers:
🏦 Stabilize agricultural markets through thoughtful monetary policy.
🌱 Adopt regenerative practices like cover cropping, no-till farming, and rotational cropping. (My patio garden thrives with fewer pests and flourishing mushrooms after four years of these methods!)
🔍 Invest in climate forecasting and water management to secure yields.
♻️ Support methane recovery systems to reduce emissions and create revenue.
🐝 Engage locally: Plant native pollinators or explore seed bombing (ask your nursery!).
🥫 Localize and reduce waste: Preserve food, prevent waste, and balance supply with demand.
🌟 Everyone has a role. Whether planting pollinator-friendly flowers, rethinking investments, or reducing food waste, your actions make an impact.
The Top Food Systems Innovators:
Strella, founded by Katherine Sizov, predicts produce shelf life to reduce food waste and improve quality (Seattle local!)
Goodr is a sustainable food surplus management platform founded by Jasmine Crowe-Houston that helps reduce food waste and feed the hungry. I've followed them since they were in the Google Circular Economy competition in 2019 and it's been incredible to see them soar!
Joe Morabito, a scientist at Mori manufactures a naturally derived edible barrier to slow down food spoilage
Jan Allen, P.E., CMQ/OE founded Chomp to turn would-be food waste into energy and biofertilizer
Philippe Schuler is "Uncovering the Food Waste Scandal" with independent research for best practices and solutions
Anne Marie Bonneau and Carleigh Bodrug are both outstanding zero-waste chefs
Dr Vincent Walsh is involved in a spectrum of food system innovation initiatives including a showcase regenerative agriculture operation in the UK
Leanne Gluck founded Farm-ng to develop open-source robotics for regenerative agriculture
