Hi everyone!

USAID and WILDLABS.NET are kindly organizing an online event for you to reconnect. In the context of that event, they will also launch an online space where will you be able to continue to collaborate and exchange, including with the wider conservation community, would you and as you choose to. 

In order for the organizers to finalize the details of your online event, please take a minute this week to complete this doodle poll which proposes a few possible times in November: https://doodle.com/poll/uaaenknp2ymmf73t

Goals:

• Give Tech Challenge winners, supporters and staff a chance to connect with each other and say farewell to the official program.
• Kick off ongoing community of Tech Challenge winners on WILDLABS that continues to collaborate, share successes, and lessons learned.
• Identify lessons and reflections from winners, supporters and staff to be shared with interested communities including 1) USAID staff and partners and 2) WILDLABS community of innovators working to conserve wildlife.

Draft topics include: 

• How is your solution different now than it was when the Tech Challenge began? How did you change your solution and why? [identifying partners with new opportunities and ideas; changes in laws or policies forcing a change; etc.]
• Did the Tech Challenge help you identify opportunities or otherwise open doors for your solution? What aspects of the Tech Challenge were most helpful for you?
• What is one challenge you have encountered and how are you addressing it? [Obtaining permits, discovering that a concept didn’t work in reality, etc.]
• What are you currently working towards with your solution and what support do you need?
• What opportunities are there for winners to work together in the future?

What do you think? What are your recommendations for topics to discuss? 

Thanks!

Natalie Bailey

USAID Forestry & Biodiversity Office