VIDEO CHALLENGE FOR CREATIVES

Innovation Beyond the Buzzword

1 Edition: Unpacking Agrifood Innovation

Send your proposal by 30 November!

What does innovation really mean — and what does it take to make it happen?

Innovation is not just about new technologies. It is also about rethinking how we work, collaborate, make decisions, develop solutions, mobilize resources and shape policies to address the challenges facing our agrifood systems.
At the heart of the challenge are the five types of innovation identified in the FAO Science and Innovation Strategy: technological, social, policy, institutional and financial innovation.

But what do these different forms of innovation mean in practice? What makes an approach innovative? And how can understanding innovation help us challenge existing assumptions, develop new skills and find better ways to address complex problems?

FAO's Office of Innovation invites students, young professionals and creatives from around the world to take part in Innovation Beyond the Buzzword, a global video challenge to make the ideas and approaches behind agrifood innovation easier to understand, more accessible and relevant to a broad audience.

Your challenge is to take an idea related to agrifood innovation and bring it to life through a short, engaging and thought-provoking video.
We are looking for creative ways to unpack how innovation works, what enables it, what challenges conventional thinking and how different approaches can contribute to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems.

You do not need to be an innovation expert. What matters is your curiosity, creativity and ability to make complex ideas understandable and meaningful.

WHAT COULD YOUR VIDEO EXPLORE?
Innovation can take many forms. To help you explore what lies behind it, here are some questions to spark your curiosity and inspire your creative proposal.

• When farmers become innovators: What can we learn from solutions developed by farmers and local communities, and how does this challenge conventional ideas about who drives innovation?
• When technology meets reality: What makes a new technology genuinely useful, accessible and capable of addressing real needs?
• When people innovate together: Why can collaboration between farmers, researchers, entrepreneurs, businesses and institutions lead to solutions that none could develop alone?
• When the rules need to change: How can policies, regulations and incentives enable new ways of doing things?
• When good ideas struggle to grow: Why do promising innovations sometimes fail to reach those who need them, and what kinds of support, skills and connections can help?
• When financing opens new possibilities: How can different financing approaches make it possible to test, adopt and scale innovative solutions?
• When innovation raises difficult questions: How can we ensure that innovation is responsible, inclusive and beneficial to those who need it most?
• When we imagine different futures: How can exploring possible future challenges help us make better decisions and innovate today?

These questions are starting points for inspiration, not prescribed themes. Your proposal should explore a specific idea, principle or approach that helps explain how innovation works, what enables it or how it can contribute to transforming agrifood systems.

Your video does not need to cover an entire innovation category or answer every aspect of a question. Instead, focus on one clear idea or approach that you would like to explore creatively.

You may draw on real-life examples, imagined situations, analogies, animation or other creative visual approaches. The aim is not simply to showcase an innovative solution, but to help viewers understand what makes innovation possible, why it matters and how it can change the way we approach challenges.