Welcome to the Circular Accelerator 2023 Closing Showcase. I'm your host, Immanuella Orsini, broadcasting to you live from the World Economic Forum headquarters in Geneva. Now, I'm thrilled to be here with you to talk about some of the pioneering circular economy entrepreneurs who have completed the Circular Accelerator program, an initiative led by Accenture in partnership with Anglo-American, AWS, Ecolab, and the World Economic Forum's innovation platform, Uplink. Now, Uplink is a platform hosting innovation challenges, looking for early-stage solutions, tackling some of the biggest challenges we face across the world, from water scarcity, food insecurity, deforestation, and how to make our world more sustainable by driving a circular economy. Now, last fall, Uplink launched the Circular Accelerator 23 Challenge, a search for the most promising circular economy solutions from around the globe. And over the last six months, the Circular's program has been working with 16 trailblazing innovators, providing them with networking opportunities, access to investors and advisors, as well as digital media visibility via Uplink and the World Economic Forum. Now, today, you'll hear more about some of these circular economy top innovators and their solutions, from transforming old clothes into fragrances to creating smart packaging labels in order to reduce food waste, and many more. We'll also hear from some alumni members of the program and learn more about how being a part of the Circulars has helped them get to where they are now. And finally, we'll speak with industry experts to learn more about the current landscape of the circular economy and what's next for its future. But first, let's hear from Kathleen O'Reilly from Accenture. Thank you, Emanguella. I am delighted to be here today to celebrate our fantastic cohort of circular innovators. I want to start by congratulating all 16 startups for your amazing successes and achievements to date, and especially over these past few months. You have been and continue to be a constant inspiration to all of us as you work to advance the transition to a circular economy. Today marks the completion of the third year of the Circulars Accelerator. And as I reflect on the 50 circular startups we have supported to date and the impact we've had, I am reminded of how critical the work we are doing is. The sustainability challenges businesses and society are faced with often seem overwhelming, but they also provide us all with an unprecedented opportunity. For businesses, this is an opportunity to reinvent themselves and become more relevant, resilient, and restorative in the face of the current climate where businesses are faced with increasing pressure and sustainable progress is stalling. Ultimately, to shift the course of business and reinvent for a sustainable future, we need to transform systems, and this must be driven by circular economy principles, innovation, and increased collaboration across the ecosystem. Based on what I have seen as part of the Circulars Accelerator this year and in previous years, I'm extremely optimistic and hopeful for the future. The 50 startups we have supported to date are already reinventing the way we do business, and with the support of the program, they are unlocking new opportunities and partnership models to scale for rapid transformation. At Accenture, we are committed to advancing the circular economy to build a sustainable future, and the Circulars Accelerator is critical to this vision. As of today, five of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached largely due to the linear take, make, waste economy. The circular economy can help us reinvent new avenues for growth, once it can enable both net-zero and nature-positive solutions and restore ecosystems. By supporting circular startups and scaling their solutions and bringing together the circular ecosystem, we are accelerating action to address our biggest sustainability challenges. Once again, I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Cohort 2023. I wish you all the best on your continued journeys. I would also like to thank our partners, Anglo-American, EcoLab, AWS, and the World Economic Forum for their continued support and cooperation. Last but not least, thank you to our network of circular supporters, which includes all of our advisors, mentors, champions, and investors. To the entire Circulars Accelerator ecosystem, the program would not be the same without your engagement and commitment to building a better future. Back to you, Immanuel. Thank you so much for your inspiring remarks, Kathleen. And now I'm thrilled to introduce to you three top innovators from this year's Circulars Accelerator Cohort to hear more about their sustainable solutions and their impressions over the past six months. Welcome, Catherine Shane, founder and CEO of CIRT, joining us just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Victoria Canar, co-founder and CEO of Refresh Global based in Germany and Israel. And Deepak Rajmahan, founder and CEO of GreenPod Labs, joining us from the south of India. Thank you so much to all three of you for being here today. Now I want to start with each one of you. I want you to each tell me what your innovation is, what your exciting innovation is, and what was the inspiration behind starting your company. So, Vika, let's start with you. Tell us about Refresh Global. Okay, thank you so much, First of all, for the opportunity to speak. I'm extremely excited to be here and I can't believe that the program is almost over. So yeah, our journey was of course a bit longer than just the program. We started out actually quite a while ago working in the fashion industry. The biggest stage of the world that you can imagine doing fashion shows, producing clothes, working with big brands.  I will put it like this, what happens after the show is over. And so my co-founder and I, we decided that we want to do something about it. We want to really look at this backside and actually create something beautiful and highly available from it. Because today most of it goes to landfill, being insinuated or being shipped somewhere else to continue polluting there. And so we brought together really some of the best minds in different disciplines. We decided that circle economy can really be achieved if you can work with people that are not necessarily from industry because they can come with different ideas. So what we see here is actually a far, a far fetch from the fashion shows and the fashion clothes we have produced. Today became a company which takes the textile waste and completely, completely changes it and processes it from in newer materials which then can be used in different industries. And the ultimate goal is to create the solution that can be used locally because waste of textiles is everywhere where there are people. Yeah, and it's super important. As you said, fashion is one of the biggest polluters in the world. So it's super important that you've found this technology to transform these old textiles, turning it into different products like fragrances and upholstery for cars as well, I think. So great work. Thank you so much. Now, Catherine, over to you. Tell us more about CIRT and what you do at your company. Yeah, thanks. I'm excited to be here. Again, I'm Kat Shane, co-founder and CEO of CIRT. And CIRT is unlocking packaging's potential for good. So we have a B2B SaaS platform with smart labeling technology and APIs that allow for organizations to collaborate and organize information about products and packaging across their footprint. So this is helping with supply chain efficiencies, reducing waste and ESG tracking. One of our most impressive attributes is that we can answer, can I recycle this anywhere in the world? So most materials end up in landfills, the environment or our ocean. And actually my co-founder and I studied this for a long time. We were in landfills and dump sites and doing beach cleanups around the world and studying how plastic pollution affects our environment. And simultaneously looking into circular materials management. So out of this work CIRT was born and we were able to bring a really sophisticated software to the industry so that organizations can collaborate on this kind of information and really start to track materials and where they go. So I'm excited to be here to close out the circulars with this amazing cohort and on this panel. So thanks. Thank you so much, Kat. It's definitely important. I think a lot of people don't know where to recycle, how to recycle their waste. So great innovation. Thank you so much. And now over to Deepak. Tell us about Green Pod Labs and what inspired you to start your startup? Thank you so much. Thank you for this opportunity. Really appreciate it being here. So Green Pod Labs, our primary objective is to minimize food bases and food losses in developing countries. If you look at developed countries and developing countries about 40% of fresh produce is lost before each is a consumer in developing countries. In developed countries in the US and Europe about 35% is lost after each is a consumer. It's a lack of infrastructure in developing countries where the losses are happening. That's what we're trying to solve. So we've developed a biotechnology based active packaging very similar to the one we're importing. These sachets would help extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables during transport and storage at ambient temperatures. We use a science called defense mechanism which is a immune system within the fruit and vegetable which helps extend the shelf life during transport and storage. We're trying to replace cold storage and cold supply chain with a product of what we have developed. Super excited to be here. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. Okay, amazing. That's really exciting to see. I think it's super important as you said food waste is a huge issue. So I think anyone could use those sachets at home that would be very, very helpful. So now let's go and talk a bit more about the program. Vika, what were some of the biggest highlights from the past six months? Well, of course, one of the biggest highlights was the video that was created to sometimes it's actually someone else can portray it better than you do it because the problem is so complex and you sometimes need more than just a few words to really describe it and make people understand. So we were so thankful that there was a team that helped us actually and created this beautiful message and portrayed that we can now show it around the world and we got an overwhelming feedback about that from people all over and it really helped put us on the map and also not less important put this big huge problem on the map. Other than that, I think it was just amazing to see people from all over the world working on this and I think we sometimes tend to forget that it's not just in Europe where people are aware of this problem. It's really everybody is talking and trying to work on approaches how to make our economy circular and it's really great that we could meet people from literature around the world who are thinking about similar problems as ours is us. Amazing, and Kat, can you tell us about your time with the circulars and what did you learn from your other cohort members? Yeah, well, I definitely want to start with the different programming that was given during the circulars was really helpful for us. So hopefully it was also helpful for our cohort members. One of the most interesting and revealing ones was around tri-sector innovation. So we've been thinking about that for a while on how to bring together partners like nonprofits and government agencies. And so that was something that we took and are going to make it a strategy going forward. And from our interactions with the other cohort members, we learned that we weren't alone. Solving complex problems is difficult. It's challenging and having a support system is definitely key. And so I think that the circulars provides that through this program. And in talking with Sierra from Rebundle, it actually helped us frame how we would start to tackle materials other than packaging. So we really saw a potential to collaborate with her. So you might see a Rebundle CERT collab coming out soon. So we're excited to be able to continue to interact with the different cohort members. Oh, that's so great to hear. Like that's really exciting to hear that there's different collaborations happening within the cohort. So super exciting. And now Deepak, tell us about how the Circulos helps you accelerate your scaling journey and what's next for your company? Yeah, for sure. So the program was well thought out from all different angles to accelerate a company. And we were at the point where we completed our R&B extensively and we were working towards the scale of our product and expanding our commercial approach to the customers. So we would rightly push it to access all the resources what was provided through the program and also like maximize the interaction with the mentors. I think a couple of things which really stood out, the access to excellent mentors, both from Equalab and also from Accenture perspective really transformed our approach towards commercialization. And also like during the program, interacting with other cohort members gave a different perspective on the problems that we were solving. It's all about like getting new frameworks and new top process that really accelerated our opportunity. So we were just early stages of commercializing product. Now we have already commercialized two products. We work with about like 200 plus customers.  So really, really happy that we got the opportunity to interact with several other entrepreneurs and mentors. It definitely helped us scale faster. All right, that's amazing. That's really exciting to hear. Thank you all so much for being here today and best of luck for the future of your companies. Wish you all the best. Now let's hear from a few of the other members of cohort 23 on their highlights from the past six months. The highlight of the circular accelerator program for me is the combination of tailored education, mentorship and networking opportunities specific to the circular economy space. We gain knowledge, skills, connections and validation that are crucial for our growth and success in the circular economy sector. Through the workshops I learned with Accenture to have a better storytelling of the challenges we want to address with different audiences. Mainly to the business to business audience which is so important for our business. Also, how to plan better our actions and how to sell to the companies in a more structured way. One of the many great things we learned while working with excellent members of the circular economy is that we all face similar challenges such as how we frame value, looking at how we embrace change collectively and of course, circular logistics. All in all, it provides hope that if we work together impact will continue to happen. I think that the main benefit is the type and level of contact that you make through the WEF and through the circulars. I think the way that they connect you with companies is fantastic and they're connecting with people that can actually make a decision. There's also a good level of coaching that goes on prior to those meetings which I think is invaluable. And I think that others are business have benefited from it because our pipeline has increased and we've certainly widened our network with really serious people. In the last three months, we have scaled our business by 1.4x. We have increased our brand visibility as well due to this platform. We have got enough intent, letters across the globe from the US markets, UAE market, Canada, UK market to check out this technology and decentralize in the specific region. Given that I work in the circular economy every single day and focus a lot on that, sometimes I worry that I have an artificial hopefulness for the future of the world and circular economy. But being involved in the circular accelerator has reminded me that there are brilliant, skilled people across the world with different ideas to tackle so many of the problems that we need to that the circular accelerator has reminded me that it isn't an artificial hopefulness, that there are really wonderful and brilliant people working on all of these problems. My hope is that this incredible program, The Circulars, is shining a light on what it is we do and moving the needle on what's common knowledge in business. After meeting all of the other cohort members, I am incredibly invigorated and excited about what the future holds. So exciting to see the highlights and the learnings. Congrats again to the entire cohort for completing this program. Now, let's meet another top innovator from the current cohort, as well as two circular alumni to hear about their progress since they first became involved with the program. Now, I'm delighted to introduce Jackson Alvarez, co-founder and co-CEO of Evo Electric, joining us from Los Angeles, California. Natasha Frank, founder and CEO of Eon, joining us from New York City. And Ibrahim Magari Amoudou, founder and CEO of Rice Africa, joining us from Lagos, Nigeria. Thank you so much for being here with me today. It's really exciting to see you again, Natasha and Ibrahim and Jackson. I'm actually meeting you for the first time virtually. So thanks so much to all of you for being here. Now, Natasha, I wanna start with you. Let's talk a bit about Eon. So Eon has created digital IDs to track clothes throughout their entire life cycle to help companies resale their products as well as make them more traceable. So you were a part of cohort 2021 and you've achieved some amazing milestones since, including partnerships with luxury brands like Chloe to help them build a more circular economy. So can you talk about how the program has helped you get to where you are now? Yeah, thank you so much and thank you to the program. It's been an incredible journey. I'd say the biggest thing you can ask for as an innovator is for your solution to go from innovation to kind of a new normal and a new baseline. And I think what we've seen throughout the course of our participation in the Circularist Program is the concept of digital ID, also known as digital product passport, go from being something that was innovative and quite next-gen to something that is now expected to be a new normal across the fashion and retail industry. It will be expected that every physical product have a unique ID, that those products are traceable, that those products are resellable. And ultimately within the next few years, actually there will be legislation across the EU that mandates every item have a digital ID. So I think the work with the Circulers and our work at Eon has helped accelerate that transition and move innovation into a new normal. So thank you. Oh, that's amazing. And can you talk a bit about what parts of the program helped you get to where you are now? I'd say with any major systems changed, it requires cross-industry collaboration, it requires stakeholder education, and it requires a network within industry and beyond to sort of disseminate the ideas and solutions. And I'd say the Circulers program offered us that within fashion retail and also across other industry sectors that we're now expanding into. Exciting. Now over to Ibrahim, let's talk about Rice Africa. So Rice Africa is boosting harvest productivity by helping farmers access equipment, agricultural data in Nigeria. So you were part of cohort 2022. Tell us a bit about how Rice Africa has grown over the past year and what are some of the projects you're working on now? Thank you, Emanuella. And thank you for inviting me and congratulations to these amazing innovators that we've seen so far. And like I've always been saying, the Circulers accelerator program has escalated our brand to a global brand. We started with just a small company in Nigeria. It has double our workforce. We've expanded to the East African coast. We are currently in two African countries, Nigeria and Tanzania, we are switching on Rwanda at the end of the year. And it has been an amazing ride. And so far through the exposure of the circular accelerators and the system thinking that come with it, we've structured our operations. So far we've invested over 5,400 hectares. We have saved over 15 million kilogram of grains in Africa. And this 50 million kilograms has added, I mean it can feed 50 million people more in a continent that according to the UN FAO, we are facing a hunger crisis with almost 400 million people facing severe hunger. We feel this achievement wouldn't have been possible without the exposure and the partnership that came with the circular program, especially all the sessions, the masterclasses, the networking and it has been so amazing. Currently we're working on transiting from just a Havesta hiring service provider to a full aggregate optimization service provider. During the circular's program in last year, we were exposed to see all the benefits in the value chain. We've developed a platform called Farm Easy, which is basically like an Uber for small hold of farmers that we can connect them to not just Havesta services that we started with, we're not connecting them to lamp preparation equipment, we're connecting them to high yielding seed, we're connecting them to environmentally friendly chemicals, we're connecting them to free extension services. And at the end of the day, we're connecting them to a structured market. So this is all courtesy of what we've experienced and what the circular program has exposed us to. Thank you. Wow, that's incredible impact, really, really, really great to hear. Congrats, Ibrahim. Now, Jackson, I wanna talk to you about EVO Electric. So you're part of the current cohort and EVO Electric transforms old trucks into 100% electric feet by connecting them to the cloud and providing live insights into their operation. So what opportunities has the program presented you with so far? And what's next for EVO Electric? Yes, thank you very much for having us today. And this program, just when I heard what everybody's saying, it's been outstanding and amazing. One of the key things that I wanted from this program is that how tailored it's been. It's really looking at what are our needs and how can they connect us to individuals and entities that can help advance our mission. So as we're helping to carbonize the transportation by leveraging circular economy principles and merging with advanced EV technology, we need partners that are both in the technology side but also on the circular side. So from a technology side, we've been connected, for example, with AWS where we're looking and as well as Accenture that are helping us look at different ways that we can leverage data so that we can do battery, paper, use model for a spotter or business model to lower the upfront cost. We have also learned on the circular side about the circular car initiative, which is a trend that is going on in the automotive space. And a lot of what we're working on is actually part of those trends. So there's a bigger support system that we realize that can help us not reinvent the wheel of what's happening and lean on that. And something else that is important to us is figuring out financing. Financing for use assets or assets that are re-manufactured is not necessarily very straightforward, but there's a lot of different examples in different sectors, the industrial sectors that can help us connect some dots on how these vehicles and batteries can be financed to scale our solution and our impact. And the takeaway for that is that we're now exiting the pilot stage of our company and entering the commercialization stage. That means we're working on deploying 100 vehicles over the next year and aiming to get to 10,000 a year over the next five years. To do that, it's one of the critical things we're doing is leveraging the existing space equipment and the people that are already servicing commercial vehicles worldwide so that we don't have to build new plans and take new resources. But we can also be circular on how this is deployed by leveraging those facilities, those people and transitioning those skillsets to now the new green economy. So that's what we're working on. Okay, exciting. Lots of things to look forward to. So congrats, Jackson. Now, I want to go to Natasha and Ibrahim, you are former alumni, you're former Circular's cohort members. What advice would you give to Jackson and actually the other current cohort members now that they're finishing the program? Natasha, start with you. Oh my God. Don't finish the program, you would keep going. I'd say we keep in touch with a lot of the mentors and team members that we met. We also keep in touch with the other startups and we keep in touch with the Accenture team because as we've started to more commercialize and work on enterprise implementations with a lot of global brands and retailers, the Accenture team has been a really valuable partner in that. And Ibrahim, what advice would you give? Yeah, I mean, they should keep learning. I mean, the moment you stop learning, you start dying. So keep learning, keep taking advantage of the network that you've built so far and this is what I've been doing personally and as an organization. Keep learning, keep reaching out and explore live with that multidisciplinary approach. Try and understand what works in one industry, partner with the members of your cohort and also know that, I mean, impact is the new language of business. So keep networking. Impact is the new language. Definitely, impact is the new language. Very important. Last question for Jackson. What advice would you give to future cohort members that are maybe watching this and they would like to apply? Yeah, some of the key, one of the key things I would mention is to engage as many of your team members as possible with the larger Secular Accelerator because the Seculars are masters are at connecting. So their network is extremely broad with all the partnerships that are involved. So you really get what you put into it and then the more engaged and the more people you can get involved, the more you can get out of it. So this is an outstanding and amazing program that really drives and moves the needle for the business. All right, well, I wanna thank you all for being here with me today and really best of luck for the future. I hope we can speak again and hear more about your impact. So thank you, Natasha and thank you, Jackson. Thank you, Ibrahim, for your input. And now I'm happy to introduce actually another alumni member of the Circular Accelerator from Cohort 2022 who is in the studio with me here today in Geneva. Kristin Kagesu is the co-founder of Sathi, a company that makes biodegradable menstrual pads out of banana fibers in India. Welcome, Kristin. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, it's great to have you in the studio physically. So why don't you inform the audience? Tell us a bit more about Sathi pads. What was the inspiration behind starting your organization? Tell us more about it. Yeah, so we started Sathi initially to address lack of access to menstrual products, but we also wanted to do it in a sustainable way. In India, only 36% of women have access to menstrual products. So the majority of women that don't have access are mostly in rural areas. And because there's also then a lack of waste infrastructure, we were also thinking, how can we provide a single-use product in these areas with lack of waste infrastructure and yet not have any other solution stuff cycles? And yeah, it seems like a pretty simple solution, making biodegradable menstrual sanitary products. Why do you think that hasn't been done before? And how are you doing it differently? A number of different reasons, but I think part of it definitely is the supply chain. So we're using an agri-waste fiber, and we're converting it into an absorbent. That's our special sauce, if you will. But basically, being able to do that at scale, I think not only that part, but replacing every other layer of the pad for an established company, they have to redo quite a lot of different elements of the way they do business today. Whereas because we have nothing anyway, we had to start from scratch. So we were able to develop each of those steps ourselves. And how has Saffi grown over the past year since finishing the program? And what were some of the biggest challenges you faced? Yeah, so since last year, actually, we have a couple of exciting things that we've been doing. So one is that we've also added a couple new products to our lineup. We have a couple of new distribution channels. When we started Saffi, we actually launched our One Million Pads initiative. And as of last year, we've distributed One Million Sanitary Pads. So this year, we've launched our 10 million sanitary pads initiative. And our last kind of milestone is that we've also made some more progress on our plastic avoidance program as well. OK, amazing. And what were some of the biggest takeaways and learnings from the program that you feel benefited and impacted your company's growth so far? I think we really got to explore more about how our plastic avoidance program would be perceived by companies. That was something we really wanted to take away from the sessions and get a lot of feedback on. A couple other things were that we had access to the World Economic Forum, the uplink community. And we actually had an opportunity to do a workshop here today with staff here at the World Economic Forum. So we're really excited about that. And we had an opportunity to write about our plastic avoidance program on the World Economic Forum website. So I think all of these have really raised the bar in terms of having more companies actually interested in talking to us about this program. Great. So lots of visibility, global visibility. And you've recently got some funding. Yeah, would you like to talk about that and talk about maybe what are the biggest milestones that you've achieved? Yeah, so we're currently raising some funding. So about $1.5 million. And of that, we've already raised about $400,000. And that's from a couple of different impact-oriented investors and ocean plastic-oriented investors as well. OK, amazing. And do you have any final words of advice for critical core members that are completing the program? I think definitely it's to, I think, the previous one that I have already mentioned. But to keep in touch, we really benefited from also learning more about the different ways that other companies are approaching kind of corporate partnerships and how they're kind of navigating that relationship as well. So I think keeping in touch, asking a lot of questions and seeing what opportunities you can take advantage of there. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here physically. And best of luck for the future of Sati. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now let's hear some remarks from our program partners Ecolab, Anglo-American and AWS, who have provided invaluable support over the past six months to our innovators in the program. The circular economy will be key to solving our challenges and will enable us to unlock the true value of resources, human ingenuity, and technological capabilities. But time's running out. We now have an urgency to raise the collective ambition to accelerate the circular transformation at scale. At Anglo-American, our purpose is to reimagine mining to improve people's lives. To achieve this, we're moving towards a net zero future underpinned by, among others, circular economy principles. We know we cannot solve global challenges alone. Cutting edge innovation combined with collective action will be critical to accelerate the global transition to circularity and build a more sustainable future. Our commitment and the work that we've done with the circulars has been a huge contributor to our work in this space because it's driven our ability to connect to the circular economy ecosystem and thereby also help to drive change at scale. At Ecolab, the world's water, hygiene, and infection prevention company, we are focused on protecting people and the resources vital to life. Whether we are advancing food safety, maintaining clean and safe environments, or optimizing water and energy use, our longstanding commitment to the circulars is core to who we are as a company. It is driven by our ambition to connect the circular economy ecosystem, drive change at scale, and create a lasting positive impact. On behalf of myself and the team of AWS, a huge congratulations to the 2023 Circular School Board. Even the current sustainability challenges, your solutions help accelerate the transition to a circular economy. We are incredibly proud of the 2023 Circular Accelerator cohort and congratulate them on their progress and success. I want to congratulate that cohort of 2023 of the Circular Accelerator. They truly represent the latest innovations across the value chain of the circular economy and their testament to human and business ingenuity that allows us to rethink how our economy and societies actually work. We must meet this moment to catalyze sustainable growth and drive collaboration to support the lives of humans, other species, and the environment. We're looking forward to following their journeys going forward. In fact, we're working with some of the representatives of previous year's cohorts and support them as they scale. So all the best for the future. Huge congrats again. Continue to drive your disruptive impact for a transition towards a more circular economy. Thank you again to our partners for the invaluable support. And now it's time for our final segment of the day. Joining me to talk more about the current and future state of the circular economy industry is Wesley Spindler, Sustainability Strategy Director and Global Circular Economy Lead at Accenture, and Fernando Gomez, Head of Resource Systems and Resilience at the Center of Nature and Climate here at the World Economic Forum. Thank you both for being here. Now, Wesley, let's start with you. Thank you. This is the third year of the circular's accelerator. So since 2021, the program has supported 50 circular startups. What are some of your reflections from this last year and how will this influence what's next for the program? Thanks, Emanuella. It's so great to be here and hear all of the amazing stories today and just a small reflection of what we've been able to achieve. And as you said, we've been able to work with 50 startups since the start of the program over three years ago. And it's so incredible to see the change that they've been able to make as well as the change that we've seen with the 16 incredible innovators and pioneers in the 2023 cohort. I've been delighted to see the progress that you've already made.  And I'm looking forward to seeing your continued growth and impact, which I know you will all achieve. And since our first cohort in 2021, I'm so impressed by the rate at which the circular innovations and solutions have really expanded across industries, across value chains, which I think is really reflected in the diversity of the startups we've had the privilege to support. Even through the event today, you've seen some of that diversity, including range of startups like Machine Compare in the UK who enables industrial manufacturers to trade spare parts, to Mandela's Energy in Uganda who provide electricity from agricultural waste to off-grid communities. So really having witnessed this determination of these startups to drive forward positive change, I think this year has been a reminder of how critical it is that we as a business community really stay committed to circular transformation and support all of these pioneering solutions. So as a program, and I think in terms of what's next, I think we're very, very determined to build on this momentum, raise our ambition, and continue to support and circular startups and really maximizing their impact through focused and scaled ecosystem collaboration with all the necessary actors that are committed to the same outcomes. So a little bit on what we're proud of, really what we've seen, and what we hope to see next. Thank you, Wesley. And now, Fernando, what has the Circular's program meant to the forum and uplink? Well, thanks for the opportunity. And I've always thought that this is kind of an unfair question because it's a long history of learning together. But if I had to focus on three things, I think the first one is really there's nobody who knows everything about innovation. And this has given us as an organization the opportunity to learn a lot, not only in the partnership with Accenture, but also from the enormous and super exciting examples from the innovators themselves, that would be the first one. The second is something that kind of speaks to the fabric of the forum, which is probably the more systemic we think about this, the higher the likelihood of some of these innovations to actually flourish and make it to delivering the social and the economic benefit that has motivated this fantastic group of innovators. And the last one is it's probably important to think that we not only need a lot of creativity on the solutions, on the technology, but actually on the schemes, on the structure, on the machinery of bringing some of these innovations alive. And maybe if there's anything that I would say as an opportunity, it's actually to continue integrating these great examples into the work that we do in our centers and outside of the World Economic Forum, basically in a number of the socioeconomic systems where this will again deliver that value to society, to all of us. And so how has the program shaped its approach, the forum's approach to engaging the startup community on circular innovation? How does the forum work with the startup community? Yeah, it's a journey, it's a journey, but we've learned a lot through this program, actually. And I think the work that we're doing with Uplink as well has given us a new opportunity to potentiate and to amplify the integration of these startups into our work. For the longest time, since its inception, the forum was created as a multi-stakeholder platform. And the role of innovations, motor companies, startups, scale-ups, the small and medium enterprise is just as important as the more recognized, let's say established corporates, the public sector or academia. So for us is a journey that we've only been in it for the last 50 years or so as an organization, but looking forward to what actually what we can do in this together for the next phase. And now a question for both of you. Wesley, let's start with you. How have you seen circular solutions begin to transform industries? And what does this mean for the future of the circular economy? It's a very important question. And I have been working in this space for over a decade. So I've really seen it all from where we've started, from where we are now. And I think firstly, it's so encouraging to see more and more organizations move away from our linear thinking to start to really implement circular business models and practices. And I think the global community has really come together to recognize and dress that our vast sustainability challenges ahead can only be solved. Or if we really think about how we produce and consume our resources and ultimately all the products and services that we have in our organizations that we offer as well as use in our daily lives. And we're seeing more companies set bold circular targets and implement new solutions across industries to really focus on moving away from doing less bad to more net positive and regenerative thinking and ambition. And I think circular has really been recognized as a driver for this and not only that but a driver for growth and competitiveness which is very important as it has a lot of multi-dimensional value to bring. And these efforts are driven by adopting new practices, implementing cutting-edge circular programs that fundamentally really rethink the design, the use or reuse and recovery of products and services to start to create these more closed loop systems. So as a result, I think circular is rapidly becoming a business imperative in addition to an environmental imperative. However, we are getting closer to our sustainable development goals timeline and we must start to really accelerate beyond pilots and some siloed efforts to real large scale transformation that embeds circularity into business as usual. And it can't just be in businesses individually but we need broader system-wise change. And that's what I think we really want to encourage as the next wave of innovation. So stakeholders across ecosystems coming together to rapidly innovate, test, learn and adopt solutions that can accelerate to a circular future. And a key enabler of this is really to rethink some of these partnerships going beyond their traditional models and adopting new ways for corporations, governments, startups and stakeholders to find new solutions that will really catalyze this transformation. So it's a very significant opportunity. That's what we feel. That's what I feel for companies to reinvent themselves to enable this circular system that will be more resilient, create more relevancy for customers while contributing to the restoration of our natural systems all at once. And again, innovation is such a critically important part of this. Fernando, you wanna add on to that? Well, actually, if I may just pick up on that last part. We've been thinking a lot about what all this innovation, this movement means at a larger scale for the transformation of industries themselves. And some of us have been working in the space of transformation of industries and see that this is so critical. A program like this actually brings two important elements. One is almost every sector that we turn to aspires to become more sustainable and to actually take sustainability-leading roles. So the opportunity of a program like the Circular and Accelerators where we bring leading companies of these sectors embedded into this ecosystem with the innovators gives us that opportunity. The other incredibly interesting question is to what extent the recomposition of industry sectors is actually accelerated by the acceleration of this process of innovation. To what extent can we actually, in a way, break a little bit those boundaries that allow those innovations to come through. So I think what was illustrated there actually hits right on what we see in this integration with the transformation of industries, which is something that we do here at the forum as well. Thank you, Fernando. We're running out of time, so very quickly, Wes, do you have any final words you'd like to share with the community as we celebrate the close of this year's program? Yeah, I think just to say a huge thank you. It's inspiring for me, it's inspiring for all of us watching and involved to see what innovation can do from this year's cohort and from our previous programs and for the passion and commitment to really bring disruptive circular solutions to life. And it's inspiring to see the impact that we're witnessing across industries, as Fernando pointed out, and incredibly excited to see what all of our innovators will do next and where they go and where they will take all of us on this journey. And I would really, really like to thank Cohort 23 for this deep engagement participation that you've had throughout the program. So on behalf of myself, the Circular Accelerator team and the wider program, again, thank you for inspiring us to push the boundaries on what is possible. And I think that's important for all of us to remember, really tapping into the unlocked value of circular transformation represents a huge opportunity for reinvention to solve for some of our biggest challenges. And ultimately, we cannot enable this system change that's required in our day to day work in lives without partnering in new ways, without collaborating and learning from each other. And I think this will continue to be the heart of the Circular's program. So a huge thank you to our partners, advisors, mentors, supporters, innovators, and of course, everyone listening today. It's been an immense honor and a lot of fun. And I think what we have seen today and throughout this initiative is really we have the solutions we need to create the change required to support people and planet. So I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to advance the transition to a more sustainable and circular future. Thanks so much, Emmanuel. Thank you. Fernando, any final words just very quickly? No, I think it's a celebration. So congratulations to the cohort and hopefully the beginning of a very exciting next phase. Yes, all right. Thank you both so much for being here today and for the inspiring words. And yes, again, congrats to the whole cohort. Well, that's it for today. We hope you were inspired by these amazing innovations and the future of the circular economy. The Circular's Accelerator 2023 is just one of many innovation challenges that Uplink has held since it was launched at Davos three years ago. So make sure to visit Uplink and of course, don't forget to follow us on social media to find out more about our other challenge topics and to support our community of nearly 400 top innovators as well as our community of investment funds focusing on people and planet. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.


JEE means Session 2 is starting from 4th April. Do you want to improve on your score from Session 1? Then pay special attention to the following topics which are high-weightage. These are the high-weightage topics for mathematics. For physics, these are the important chapters. And these are the important chapters for chemistry.


Good morning, good morning. What I'm doing my name is Chris Jackson. You guys may have seen me on TikTok doing basketball things. You may have seen me playing with the Harlem Globetrotters. You may have seen me on a Netflix show called The Circle. But today I have the honor and pleasure of being your emcee for this event where we're able to bring the community together. We're able to give back to the community. Now, as we all know, things have changed. People aren't going outside as much. Kids aren't really going outside as much. But we know that youth is our future, right? But it's hard to get them off of the games. It's hard to get them off of the phone. Y'all just be wanting to take talk all the time. But we want y'all outside and active, right? But sometimes there's not a safe place, a safe place for them to be active. But that's the reason why Buffalo Wild Wings and Mountain Dew Legend came together with Project Backboard to be able to give back to the community, refurbish a court in this community so that the kids can have a safe place to play. Yes. I know, I wish I had that when I was younger. It was definitely hard to find a place to play. So that's why I would have to say we went to the track a lot when my dad and when I played. It's very unorthodox. I know, I know. But I want to give a chance to the people who are able to put this all together and give them a chance to speak a little bit. And we will start off with Kyle Lazarus with PepsiCo representative. Good morning, everyone. All right. Well, Kyle Lazarus here from PepsiCo, thank you so much for coming out, here representing both Buffalo Wild Wings and PepsiCo. And we're really excited to be here. We share a love of the game of basketball, the same as all of you do. And with that, to be able to partner with Asia Wilson, an absolute legend of the game, and revamp this court for her hometown, it was an unbelievable serendipitous project that came together. And so that shared passion we have and values for supporting local communities and youth sports really made this partnership and the project entirely possible. And so I want to really thank her for her involvement in this. I also want to give a shout and recognize the Project Blackboard and Charmaine and Sienna Menifield here for their vision as they worked really diligently for the amazing artwork you have behind you and refurbishing this court. So thank you. And of course, we also want to thank the city of Columbia. Thank you for welcoming us into your home, making us a part of this and allowing us to have an impact here. We really appreciate your partnership. So with that, I would just want to say one last word to the future legends who are here. Please take a full advantage of this space, get outside, enjoy, play, have fun, and really continue to thrive on and off the court. And you really are the future. We look forward to seeing what you all do. And so with that, please join me in welcoming your city manager, Teresa Wilson. Good morning. I was so thrilled, first and foremost, of course, to see Asia and town. Hey girl. And then all of our wonderful Eau Claire High School young ladies right behind her are up and coming stars. So as Carissa said, and Cal mentioned across the country, Project Blackboard has brought large scale works of art to communities and spaces where they can easily be seen and enjoyed by everyone. And I think we see these bright, beautiful colors. And so today is thrilling to be here for the dedication of this incredible urban tapestry from artist Charmaine Menifil, which is the result of Project Backboard's partnership with our own Columbia Parks and Recreation Department. I want to thank Project Backboard, as well as Project Partners Buffalo Wild Wings, Pepsi and Mountain Dew for bringing this project to Columbia and Hyatt Park. Those well-loved companies not only fund these art projects, but make the local community connections, help identify and coordinate with the artists, bringing talent and resources we need to transform the courts and provide the overall support to ensure completion of these projects. I'm gonna go off script a little bit because my staff knows I do that sometimes. But this donation, this right here, may allows the city to be able to do even more because now this is done as something we always wanted to do so we can focus resources to continue to make Hyatt Park and this community even better. So it's very transformational. It's very meaningful. And I want to thank our own Parks and Recreation Department. Where are they? Because it wouldn't have happened without them. Under the leadership of Assistant City Manager Henry Simons and Parks and Recreation Director Randy Davis, they always lead from the front, so proud of them. And finally, Asia, from one homegrown girl to another. I am so proud of you. I watched you grow up and all the accolades you have are meaningful, well-deserved, but honestly for me, it's when I see your confidence and your grace and character instilled by the two people on both sides of you, my friends Eva and Roscoe. It makes it mean everything. So, yeah, so when they're beaming the way they are, it means everything. So keep doing what you do girl, we're proud of you. All right, so next up we have Mayor Daniel J. Rickerman. Well, you know, we're a little off script this morning because I thought we were supposed to hear it from the band before I got up here because you know, part of my remarks this morning was recognizing our Benedict Tigers over there. And I will tell you, it's exciting. Some of y'all may not know, but they're going to be in the Macy's Day Parade in two weeks representing, it's just a honey bee, Asia. But also have to give out, I know they're going to have a great halftime show today because Benedict is playing Tuskegee and the championship gaming Columbia, South Carolina today. Very excited about that. We're also going to hear this morning from Mimi Draft, the president of the Hyatt Park, Keenan Terrace neighborhood about how this is so impactful for the community. But a collaborative effort like this large scale effort wouldn't happen and it wouldn't happen today if it wasn't for Asia's support. And you know, we talk a lot about former lady Gamecock but she was also the freshman SEC player of the year and AP player of the year three times and all SEC player three times. Let's not even forget about MVP, block leader, all defensive.  But I agree with Ms. Wilson, it's your grace. It's what you learn from your parents about giving back and being part of the community is probably the top. That's a hall of famer for me and thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for remembering Columbia, South Carolina even though you love being in Vegas, we love you back here. You may be number 22 on the court but you're number one in our hearts and we appreciate it all that you're here and you're doing what you're doing. But you also, I encourage everybody to come out and take a look at what Charmaine has put together here and this thing, what, beautiful, beautiful. You all deserve more than a hand but I think we're going to start with that. It's wonderful. Thanks everybody from out here, young ladies, young ladies, shamrocks. We hope to see you here next time. Give them back to your community as y'all continue to soar both academically, athletically and in life. Thank you. I would also like to just say how beautiful of a day I was told that it's been really rainy and what a perfect day for the sun to shine, right? Absolutely. All right, next we have Councilwoman Tina Herbert. Good morning, everyone. I'm gonna go off script too, that's what we do sometimes. But no, this is a full circle moment for me because the first time I heard about Asia was in a city council meeting and I was like, who is Asia? And someone was like, you gotta meet Asia, you gotta see who Asia is.  Little did I know, little did I know what Asia would become. And so I've watched you playing and with the mentors, it's been wonderful to watch your maturity. And you, and I had to just agree with Ms. Wilson, to go away and then to be able to give back and be the example to other kids who wanna play ball and show them how it can be done and done the right way is so much of what we need these days. So I'm very grateful to you and your parents because I know they instilled all of that into you. So to the script. All right, the Dazzling New Large-Scale artwork from Charmaine Menifil helps the center Hyatt Park as a cultural center for Eau Claire and further North Columbia communities. Charmaine's brilliant artwork like the vivid mural bringing life on the side of the building speaks to this community but it also speaks of this community. Public art like Charmaine's mural and this basketball court allows us to reveal the stories about ourselves, our communities, our perspectives on our past and the vision of a shared future. And it's all for free and all for everyone to see. So again, we do want everyone to come out and play out here, get some exercise in. And I will tell you, we're having a hard time getting kids to come back out and play ball. So I'm hoping that the excitement of this particular part and what Asia has done here will encourage the kids to come out. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. I know if I, as a child, if I saw a court like this, I'd be honored every day, every morning, you know, but yes, okay. Next is gonna be President Mimi Draft with Hyatt Park Kenan Terrence Neighborhood Association. Good morning, everybody. On behalf of the Hyatt Park Kenan Terrence Neighborhood Association, we wanna give a huge thank you to PepsiCo and Buffalo Owings, to Asia Wilson, to Project Backboard, to Miss Manifield, and especially the city's parks department for putting this together for us. I am also gonna go off script and say I am an Eau Claire High School graduate, Shamrock, and my sister and her husband are Benedict alum. And I think what we all know, about this area is that there's something special and beautiful about the Northman Corridor, and I'm just touched, and the community is also touched, that you all bought this beautiful artwork installation to us, and so just thank you again from the bottom of our hearts, and I can't wait to see some kids out here as well. Y'all have a good morning. I'm back. Like I ain't never left. I also wanna recognize Counsel Taylor and Counsel Duvall. Thank you so much for participating in this as well. We give them a round of applause. Thank you. All right. Now, time you guys have all been waiting for. I feel like I need like a beat or something like for this, like a doom, doom, a doom, doom. Come on, somebody, come on. National champion, two-talk sensation. Four shots in, if you know it. It's funny. No. Oh man, four shots in. Good gracious. It's not even noon yet. But no, thank you so much for everything. This has been a huge, huge weekend so far, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for people around me that loves me. And I think Columbia is number one always in my heart. That's home, no matter what. I know I live in Vegas, but I never lose sight of where I come from and Columbia is done. The state of South Carolina has done so much for me, but I gotta first thank my agent, Jade, of course. For just partnering me with people that really care about Asia more than the basketball player. And that is Buffalo Wild Wings and Mountain Dew and Pepsi all the way. It's a joy to be a part of that family because they allow me to be who I really am. And that is to really be in the community and help the next generation. I'm all about planting seeds. I'm all about what can we do better? How can we grow better as just people and even as players? So I can't thank enough for everyone. I mean, this court is beautiful. When we were taking pictures, it was just like you gotta see the wings that I look and it's wings like this so big, especially in this community because my parents, my grandparents did not live too far from here. So to come back and to give back, it's huge to me. And there I am going off script. I gotta make sure I hit every point because I don't want to miss anyone out. But this court is gonna be special because it gives the young generation an opportunity to be the next Asia. It goes to the next LeBron James and next whoever you want to name. And that's where it all goes. And I know it's hard to get kids out here because of course everybody wants to be on their phones. Everybody want to tick tock. Everybody want to be famous and influenced. But there's nothing like the sun. You gotta get that. That's huge. It's always good to get your body moving a little bit. But it's been a joy to watch this all come together. I see my BCBC. You know, you know Tigers over there. I love seeing Eau Claire out here as well. My dad went there, kind of got some buckets there. But no, this has been great. I love to see it come to life. This is gonna be probably my baby.  So thank you. Can't thank y'all enough. I know I said that so many times, but no, I am truly grateful and blessed to be able to have this in our community and bring it to life. So let's have some fun on it. Enjoy the day. Hopefully BC, you know, get they dub. And yeah, let's just have a good time. So thank you. But thank you so much.


Hi everyone, we are Aina, Arlette and Paula and now we are going to present our project on Utopia which is based on linguistic legislation. We are three students from Bumbefra University in Barcelona and as we are language students more precisely translation interpreting and applied linguistics, we wanted to analyze the legislation, the Spanish, the Catalan and the European law and we wanted to see if it is applied on the labeling of the products. The main objective of this project is to analyze the label of various products from a linguistic perspective. In the first place the selection of five products belongs to the food sector. Two of which are local products and the other three are exotic. In the second place the analysis of its labels has been carried out, in which it has been considered the fulfillment or not of the relative laws of the Catalan label, as if these coincide or differ in the two local products and in the three exotic products, so that later it can define a linguistic panorama. For the linguistic scope, the label is regulated according to a series of laws that will be presented next. This will determine the understanding of the information of that product by users or others. This is why it has been believed that this scope is of great importance to give a study term, because it depends on the laws that govern the label of a product, some languages or others will be able to apply. In this case, the fact of analyzing local and exotic products will allow us to have a wider view of these laws, as well as the repercussion that these can have in the fact that products come more or less only because they include in their labels some languages or others. The language landscape in the work is private, since, as we have seen from the previous point in the objectives, we will focus on products that are found in two different supermarkets. We have built the study based on three research questions, the ones you see here, with which we want to see what the law says about the legislation of label and what it does in real life, what it does in reality. That is, we want to see if it really respects the language legislation and if it applies to the label of the products that we will analyze further. We also want to see if the law forces local companies to commercialize their products in Catalonia, to label them as at least in Catalonia. And finally, with the third question, we want to see if the law forces label in Castellà as at least those products, but not products in Catalonia. Concretely, five products have been selected, two of the local ones, from the Pempreu Hotel in Barcelona and three of the exotic ones from the Organic Market Hotel in Barcelona. All these products have been produced by different companies. In the case of the local products, the selected companies have been the Fajeda Dolot and Virba de Camprodón in Girona and in the case of the exotics, despite commercializing in Catalonia, they are produced by foreign companies, as is the case of Naturlan, Alternativa 3 and Outly. So, before moving on to the analysis of the label of the products, let's see what the law says about the label. According to the Real Decree of November 16th, the label is a basic right of the consumer. The label is the first information that users receive and that allows them to identify the product when they use it. Therefore, its main function is to bring information to the site, such as the manufacturer of the product, the distributor, the vendor, etc. Mainly, there are two types of label. The industrial one, which specifies the manufacturing of the product and is the one that is governed by the regulations and laws and the commercial one, which is not subject to any regulations, but which is simply an additional information that makes the product more attractive commercially. According to the Catalonia del Consum, there are 13 types of information that are obligatory to appear in the product label, among which we find the ones you see here on the screen, such as the usual name, the product commercial, the product, the composition, the list of ingredients, the recommended term of consumption, etc. After this brief introduction in the world of label of food products, we observe that what really interests us, which is the linguistic label, is organized in three levels of application. First, we find the state norm, then the autonomous one and finally the community one. The first level of legislation for one of all others is the Spanish Constitution of 1978. As you can see, Article 3 specifies that all Spaniards have the obligation and the right to use the label. Likewise, Article 4 specifies that the information on the label of food products that are commercialized in Spain must be considered at least in Spanish. The second level of application is the Statute of Autonomy, which states that in Catalonia the proper language and the preferred word is Catalan. All of this is a official language and the citizens of Catalonia have the right and the right to know two languages. In addition, since the entry of the law in 2012-2010 of the Code of Consumption of Catalonia, the consumers of Catalonia have the right to read in Catalan the information they need for the consumption of light and food from the sales and services. And finally, in the third level, we find the European standard that supports the label in several European languages. In addition, in Article 7, we can see that, according to the Law of Political-Linguistics, the products that belong to Catalonia must be considered at least in Catalan. Okay, so now we move on to the analysis of the selected products and as for the local ones, the brands found in the Catalan supermarket on Braille they also label the products considering the industrial kind of labeling, which is as we've seen the mandatory and required by the law, but they also have the commercial labeling, which is the non-required one. And so the company Birba has its industrial labeling in Spanish, Catalan, English and French, while the commercial one is just in Spanish and English. Therefore, we can say that it follows the law requirements that say that Catalan products must offer the information at least in Catalan. In contrast, the brand La Fajada uses Catalan and Spanish on its mandatory labeling, whereas for the commercial one, like the sentence that we can see in the first picture, they only use Catalan in order to highlight the fact that it is a local product and that the mail comes from their farms. And in terms of the products that were not produced in Catalan, as we can see from the pictures, the labeling of these yogurts of the brand Natureland, they are only labeled in Spanish, whereas the second one only, it uses Spanish, Portuguese and English for its industrial labeling and English for the commercial labeling, as we can see in the second picture where it literally says, here's what we believe. And finally, the third one, Learnativa 3, the industrial labeling of its products is in many languages. There are Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, English, French, German and Polish. Therefore, just this letter, Learnativa 3, makes not only the national linguistic requirements of the Spanish law, but also the regional linguistic requirements of the Catalan law. In contrast, the other two brands, maybe because they didn't have enough space on their packaging or what, we don't know why, they only comply with the regulations of the National Legislation, which requires to label the products at least in Spanish. As we already know, Learnativa establishes that for the products manufactured in Catalan, the label must be at least in Spanish. If it is a local product, produced and commercialized in Catalan, these will have to be label at least in Catalan. So, through the analysis of these products, it has been possible to prove that the linguistic normative is complied with the five analysed companies. Likewise, some of them are based on multilingualism in the label of their products more than others. For example, in the organic market, the alternative 3 company gives information up to 7 different languages. On the other hand, Naturlan only makes it in Catalan. It is worth saying that in the case of the two local products analysed, all that is complied with the Catalan normative, the obligatory information is also established at least in Spanish. Alright, so to end up after having done this mini research project, we can say that the way in which the different brands label or do the labeling of their products say a lot about their commitment in terms of linguistic requirements. Also, most of the companies in Spain usually use Spanish to label their products since it's the dominant language of the country. And finally, some of the mentioned brands that we have worked with, we could say they could work harder in order to promote the Catalan labeling. That is also an official language in Catalonia which is also important in the country and also the users of Catalonia have the right to receive the information in this last language. Okay, so that's all. Thank you for your attention and here you have our contacts for anything you need. Bye!


Hello everyone and welcome to this virtual 747-400 walk-through. I guess one of the advantages of Defcon Safe Mode this year is that we're able to bring you things like this, but nothing beats being able to climb around and poke on a real airframe, so hopefully this gives you some insights into the avionics and some secret spaces on board this very recently retired aircraft. Ken and I work for PENTA's partners in the UK and we've been very fortunate to have access to end-of-life airframes at a breakers yard from which we've learned an awful lot and we look forward to sharing some of these things with you, especially if you've never seen the inside of avionics bay before. So here we are walking up the stairs to door B2, which is the second from the front on the starboard side and gives us a nice view back over the wing. The observant amongst you will probably notice that there are some engines missing. There should be four, but three have already been sold on as these tend to be the most expensive and sought after components. On board now and we're straight into one of the galley areas and this will be where the ground services teams load those trolleys full of your drinks and in-flight meals, but sadly no fine dining today as the aircraft is basically pretty empty of everything except the seats. Let's firstly walk through to the back of the aircraft past the stairs to the upper deck. The 747 is truly a monster at 71 meters long, that's 230 feet, so there's plenty of space on this aircraft for a full-class cabin layout. Down here right at the back is the first of our secret areas, which is in fact the crew rest area. One of two this is primarily for the cabin crew. Through this door at the back are some vaguely comfy seats and then a small spiral stair leading up to the crew bunk area. Back up to the pointy end now and first class and towards the back of this section is perhaps the lesser known floor access hatch down into the electrical engineering or avionics bay. You won't find this kind of access in smaller aircraft though. You can just see the outside hatch is open as well down below at the bottom of this ladder. Let's climb down into the avionics bay then. This is our main set of avionics all neatly racked up. Each black box carries out an individual function and are called line replaceable units or LRUs. For example here we have LRUs for cabin heating control, data management and at the bottom the three inertial reference units for navigation. Looking at the same rack from the other side now we can see big bundles of cabling running from the back of the racks to other areas mostly to the cockpit which is now two decks above us. Each individual LRU will have discrete cabling up to the switches or displays in the cockpit and if needed discrete cabling to any other LRUs it needs to talk to. Most of the cables carry data in the ARINC 429 protocol on the aircraft and this needs a pair for both transmits and receive. There is no network in the traditional sense to connect to. You can't just clip into a pair of wires at the back of the aircraft and gain access to all of these other LRUs. Perhaps fortunately it doesn't work like that on this older aircraft. One other little secret is that behind the LRU rack are doors leading to the forward cargo bay. The cargo and avionics bay are pressurized and although it would be pretty cold and noisy you could in theory use this area in flight I really wouldn't want to. This aircraft has huge tanks of water in here now and this is because with the engines removed it would be too tail heavy when actually fall backwards without the equivalent weight. Let's take a closer look at one of these LRUs. This particular one is for the para visual display and indicates which shows the pilots if they're aligned on the runway. They're held onto a standard size rack with a screw thread and rubber vibration mount. Some LRUs have more than one locking screw. If we pull these out we find a custom multi-pin connector on the back of the LRU for a cable breakout. This will then run off to where it needs to go in the cockpit. Here we have two of the units involved with ACARS which is the aircraft's data length system. The CMU acts like a router sending ACARS traffic between the various radios and the output devices like display units and printers which we'll see later. Okay let's follow those cables back upstairs via a fairly unique set of stairs to the upper deck bubble. There's a galley up here too if you remember that for later. Right at the front we find the cockpit behind the armoured doors. Here we are in the cockpit then. On the left is the captain's seat and to the right is the first offices. There are two jump seats as well and behind me is the flight crew rest area just a bunk bed again and a separate toilet that they can use without going back into the passenger area. On long flights there will be three pilots or more which they rotate through so someone is always getting some rest. The Dash 400 was the first 747 with a glass cockpit and the flight instruments are screens rather than what are termed steam-driven dials and gauges. It would have been a flight engineer too but their role is now computerised for the most part. Each pilot has their own control column or yoke which is directly connected to the control services by wires, pulleys and gears on a Boeing. The center console is mostly taken up with the multifunction control and display units, thruffles and controls for the radios. They also have a primary flight display right ahead of them and an navigational display. Both are independent. In the center are the ICAS engine indicating and crew alerting system displays which show the status of all the major systems like engines, fuel, electrics, hydraulics and also comes up with a log style set of messages in yellow or red depending on severity. So let's power up. We have a single ground power unit available. We should have two really for a 747 so we need to be a bit careful on power use. By pressing the overhead button to tie in ground power one most things come alive. You'll notice there's definitely no key. After a few minutes the primary flight display showing the artificial horizon and flight director bars and the navigational display come up. Here I'm setting the first officer seat on the right so the primary flight display is on the right and the navigational display on the left. My lower ICAS display shows the electrical buses, one free engine but as you can see from the upper display we have three engines missing. The aircraft will think has a fire as the detection loops aren't connected but obviously we're not really on fire. I can also use my MCDU to access the ACAR system that we saw downstairs in the Avionics Bay. There are lots of things I can do through ACARs but that's the topic for another of my talks. Also in the cockpit are some other interesting bits of Avionics like this navigation database loader that still uses three and a half inch floppy disks. This database has to be updated every 28 days so you can see how much of a chore this must be for an engineer to visit each one. There is also a quick access recorder which is used for gathering lots of data about the aircraft's health. At the end of each flight, more near enough, an engineer will remove the PC card although this one actually has a CF to PC card converter and download the data which helps with predicted maintenance or detecting if there's been a heavy landing or tail strike for example. More and more aircraft are starting to become E enabled which means this data is streamed in near real-time back to the airlines and engine makers over SAC on so they can have replacement parts ready and waiting for when the aircraft next lands. Now then, in-flight entertainment. There's no Wi-Fi on this 747 but under the stairs, down from the upper deck, the cabin services director has a small office and this is where the 747's IFE is driven from. There is a small touchscreen PC here which is actually running in T4. This can be used to change aspects of the system, add the day's news broadcast video, reboot seat boxes and even turn individual seat lights on and off. Above this are the digital media servers themselves which contain all the movies and so on, ready to stream to each seat. There's also the boarding music and safety announcement controller which just plays off digital audio tape. There's even a little printer in here which is linked to the ACAR system so the cabin services director can print things off if they need to. And lastly, I want to leave you with a little secret. Remember the upper galley? Well, there's a lift to take catering cars between the main and the upper deck which is pretty cool. Thank you for the tour of the 747. Absolutely fascinating. Now, why didn't you do this interview in the 747 itself? Well, yeah, we should have done but it was a bit, you know, kind of confined in there and in the current Covid environment. Doing it with masks and things would have been a bit weird. So yeah, we've come back to do it in the same. So it's our simulator rather than the cockpit of the 747, that's fine. Great. Yeah. Safety first, right? Quite right too. Now, one of the things that I think is a bit of a game changer is the fact that so many airframes are being retired right now. What difference does that make for us as researchers? Aircraft themselves are really expensive piece, you know, and even if you had the all the will in the world, airlines and airframe manufacturers won't just let you go and pen test an aircraft because you don't really know what state you're going to leave in. It's not like an office network where you can go and reinstall and clean things up. Re-certifying avionics and whole airframes is ludicrously expensive. And even if you were able to have some assurance that you've cleaned up the mess, the pen tester is left. So being able to sort of do more adversarial testing of an aircraft in a flying state is not something that we really get to be able to do. So, you know, it's not a silver lining, I have to say, but one of the results of the COVID crisis and is that airlines are bringing forward a lot of their scrapping programs, particularly of these larger types, like the 747 and 380s. And as a result, they're going to salvage yards. They're not really going to fly again in their current state. No one really wants 747s anymore. So yes, the avionics make a second lease of life, but the actual aircraft themselves are unlikely to be able to fly again. And that gives us a really good opportunity to go and have a poke around. Yeah, so in the past, we've looked at airframes. I think probably the oldest one we got to have a play with was a 10-year-old A320 or so. But even then, it doesn't really represent what's coming off the production line right now, does it? So, you know, last year for DEF CON for the village, we went and bought some LRUs. But even those were upwards of 20 years old. So do you think it's the game changer, the fact that we're seeing some slightly more recent kit being scrapped or decommissioned? Yeah, for sure. I mean, the 747 that we just did the video to around was 23 years old. But remember, the design lifecycle of these things is 30 years. There's a decade or more design work that goes into an aircraft before it even goes into production and then 20 odd years of service. So what people are designing today will still be in service in 30 years time. And it's really difficult to anticipate all of sort of future security needs and requirements. So, yeah, what we've seen today is obviously not state of the art. And there are differences between 747 that we looked at and more modern aircraft like A380 that are flying today. Big differences in the way that their avionics are set up and how the networking is done on board. Yeah, so it's important to remember that particular plane was still flying just over two and a half months ago. And I think actually flew in that very plane as a passenger last year. So it is representative. It's just the scrappage programs are being accelerated. And I also went through the avionics bay actually dating the install dates from many of the components. And there's a lot of kit in there that it's only five to 10 years old in some cases. So it's not all 23 years out of date. No, no, and a lot of it is reused. So the ground proximity warning system, for example, those LRUs are pretty much interchangeable between any aircraft. I mean, I've seen the same exact LRU maker model on the 74 as I did an Airbus A320. And they go for $20,000.  So it shows you, you know, yes, stuff is coming off things that have been scrapped, but it is still current and flying. And it is mega box if you want to go bugger. So obviously 49 carries a lot of heavy wiring as a result of it. Now I know that the triple seven used an inductively coupled bus called our 629 but that was really only used in the triple seven itself. Well, recently we've seen a move towards FTX or our 664. How does that change the risk profile of the plane to you? So 664 and aviation loves its acronyms and numbers and stuff. So but 664 is basically based on Ethernet. It is Ethernet with some extra quality of service layers on top to make sure that flight critical things can almost talk to each other. So there is basically a fiber network around more recent aircraft like the triple seven acts, the 787 and the A380. So there is a fiber network and everything plugs into that fiber network. And instead of these discrete black boxes that we saw on the 747 and this whole rack of individual black boxes for one of a better word. Then there is basically a single computer crate where there's a pair for redundancy. But there's an A side and a B side computer. And things just run a software. So there's typically a real time and operating system like VX works that handles the flight critical stuff and then tends to be a Linux side for less important things and things are just run as applications on these computational nodes. So that does mean it starts to look a bit more like a traditional IT network, albeit one that's kind of hardened and more resilient in that regard. But yeah, if you don't get things right, and I'm sure we will see it on office networks and traditional office firewalling, if you don't get IP tables right, then that potentially means that traffic can move from one segmented zone to another. And that that is true on aircraft. But obviously, you're still going to need physical access and things that I think I think we noticed from looking at some navigational databases we recovered from from airplanes, particularly those on floppies is there wasn't any code signing. There wasn't any any cryptographic validity. So again, less of a problem where you're physically having to visit the plane and there's physical security in place. But as we move towards the idea of updating remotely over the air, do you think that's more of a problem? Well, where manufacturers have moved to this over the deployment model, they have implemented some code signing, which has brought it for its own problems actually recently because that code validity certificate is also only valid for a month. So if you're trying to do updates on to an Airbus at the moment, you actually have to update the certificate verification list in the certificate chain before you can do anything else. So they have thought about this as they've started to make these E&A aircraft, for example. And on the Boeing side, there are so much physical data interlocks on the aircraft. So although you can stage software updates and navigational updates, for example, onto the aircraft, they are held in an area until either a pilot or a maintenance engineer physically operates a key switch and selects where that software update should go. And there are other physical interlocks. So the aircraft actually has to have its weight on wheels switch closed as well. So the aircraft has to be on the ground, it can't be flying. And someone has to physically operate a mechanical switch in order to update that particular part. So there are some safeguards. But yeah, you're right. There are still a great reliance on CRCs and that kind of thing floating around in the aviation industry. And if you speak to people that there does seem to be a bit of a misunderstanding between integrity in that there is some sort of CRC magic number type thing to make sure the message or update hasn't been garbled in transmission versus actual message signing so that you know that that software update or message has actually come from the person that says it's come from. There's a lot of connectivity being established on planes and a particular technology I'm quite interested in is gate link, which is used to upload and download, for example, pasture and manifest information, but also things like movies and stuff. So someone physically doesn't have to put a CD or floppy crikey into the IFE. What other things are we seeing connected to planes on the ground? Primarily, it's the health and maintenance data of the aircraft that there's this big drive from the path the manufacturers to have literally cloud offerings so that you as an operator can see the status of your aircraft in real time. I mean, some of it is really cool in that, you know, they can even see, you know, how long it takes an individual valve to open or close that if this particular valve is now taking a fraction of a second longer to open or close than it was, then maybe we need to arrange maintenance to come out and change that valve before, you know, it becomes a problem and the aircraft requires more maintenance and more downtime. And remember that every time the aircraft is sitting on the tarmac, it's losing money for the airline. So to keep our fares down, we want to maximize how often these things are flying, but in a safe way. That picks up an interesting piece from a couple of years ago, a security researcher claimed to have accessed the thrush management computer from the Empire Entertainment System. What's what's your view on that? Do you think that was that was a real issue? Or do you think perhaps the media got a bit excited about it? I think it was it was thoroughly investigated by everyone and knowing the airframe manufacturers, they do genuinely take reports of this nature pretty seriously. Most of them have avionics labs where they have everything in pieces on the bench and they often have a dedicated cyber security team that can take reports of this nature and actually go and replay them on the bench and even on real airframes if they want to. So I know it was thoroughly investigated and kind of debunked at the time. I think it was perhaps a media jumping on the story rather than the individual in that particular case. But as we briefly spoke about earlier, then there is a Harank 49 flying around between the fly management system and the inflight entertainment for, you know, telling you where you are. That's just part of how it works. But that is a worn by system and we have found that in in our research. I also can't speak as to the exact operator and aircraft involved in that previous instance. But, you know, where we've gone and deliberately looking, we've not found at this point any two way communication between passenger domain systems like IFE and the control domain. And there is actually the sort of DMZ almost of the information services domain that sits between the two. So to jump between essentially two laser segregation will be tricky in my opinion. Yeah, from everything I think we've looked at, it doesn't substantiate some of the claims that we've seen. Certainly we haven't found a way to compromise aircraft control from the IFE. It strikes me that sometimes we're looking in the wrong place. Everyone gets very excited about airplanes because they're new and unusual technologies and it's great for us inquisitive researchers. But frankly, probably the most likely area to cause disruption is going to be the ground system. So if a plane can't dispatch because the ground systems are down or the maintenance systems are down, it doesn't go anywhere. So I often think that planes get really interesting and lots of fun and I think it's great that we can help assure their security. But really you need to watch out for those ground systems, right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it just reminds me of flying out to Defcon almost a year ago and a particular airline that pretty much all of us were travelling with to Vegas had a massive outage of its passenger information system. So none of the checking crew at the airports could scan your boarding pass and get you on to the aircraft. They were having to do it like literally pen and paper all by hand. Thousands of people at this one airport of the queues or out of the terminal around the carpark. Yeah, and this was global. That's a huge amount of disruption and cost and it didn't really still a job of getting us on to the aircraft in time pretty much.  So certainly before the lockdown I used to fly pretty much every single week. And I don't know about your eyes. I feel very comfortable with flying and being a passenger, even fully in the knowledge of how aviation systems work. I'm very confident in their security. How do you feel about it? Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important that we're not here to scan a bunker. Like any industry, there are areas of improvement. And I'm pretty sure they would be the first to admit that. But do any of these deficiencies mean that it's unsafe for people to fly? No. And I'm a pilot. I want to carry on flying for work. You know, I'm friends and family flying around. So I don't wish them any harm either. So no, I don't think there are any any risks. Great. Alex, thank you very much. Cheers again. So thanks for watching. I hope it was useful to you. If you have any comments or questions, let us know.