On September 2, 2019, in Bogotá, we had the opportunity to present the Coffee 5.0 Model: Technology Transformation[and work with a multi-disciplinary and visionary set of thought leaders, change-makers and allies interested in exploring ways of improving the lives of coffee farmers and agricultural communities in Colombia and around the world.
We had delved into inspiring and ambitious debates about the Model, analyzing ways to improve, scale and replicate it in more regions and other agricultural products such as cacao. Our fruitful discussions are best framed under Orlando Ayala’s insightful thought::
“This is not a sprint; it’s a marathon where we must deepen and enrich links that enable strengthening an ecosystem anchored in a two-way discussion.”
Only with a collaborative spirit will we find ways to address some of our most meaningful challenges:
• Inspiring and compelling younger generations in coffee-growing regions to recover the interest and passion for coffee growing activities as a way of achieving a prosperous future.
• Achieving long-term sustainability for our projects and in-territory implementations, ensuring that actors throughout the entire coffee value chain —especially coffee growing communities— are actively involved and committed to integrating technology into their productive models and day-to-day lives.
• Exploring new contents, platforms and services with relevant offerings that can be introduced into coffee-growing communities through technologies.
• Identifying new territories and products —both in Colombia and other countries in the world— where this Model could be successfully scaled, replicated and iterated based on our prior learnings and practices.
• Leveraging data from our technology intervention to best measure impact in multiple dimensions: quality, productivity, social, and environmental impact, among others.
• How to find more partners, allies and collaborators in different sectors of society that are interested in contributing and also gaining from this Model.
Some of these challenges were the product of an engaging Human-Centered Design workshop that allowed us to jointly understand and make sense of the Model today, in order to discover and explore ambitious and collaborative avenues of work tomorrow.
Our aim is to continuously find ways that pull together the best talents, experience, visions and passions together around one central purpose: increasing the impact and improve the lives of coffee-growers: the real center of all of our work.
Hand-in-hand with amazing partners: the Fondazione Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza ONLUS, MAKAIA, Microsoft e xFarm, we seek to make multi-disciplinary creative and lively discussions a permanent part of our work. Iterating based on continuous experimentation, open feedback from diverse individuals and groups are the right avenues to do so.
We are excited about continuing to explore the infinite realm of possibilities that emerge when we connect commitment and purpose, with the power of technology and innovation.