UpLink WEF - Circular Economy & Plastic Waste Challenges

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Relevance Comment (remote)

Enriched Corporate · Found: 2026-03-11 13:22

WEF platform accelerating early-stage circular economy innovation. Runs Plastic Waste to Value Southeast Asia Challenge with grant funding, mentorship, and partnership access. Targets Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam.

Source: https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf1oAAC/circular-economy

Funding Details

Contact: Partnership inquiries via Airtable form: https://airtable.com/app814Rdy2J9p3KRD/pagnVRVGoFKfpBDnX/form — LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/uplink-world-economic-forum — Twitter: @WEFUpLink
Last Checked: 2026-04-20 10:29

Application Checklist

Eligibility

Applicant must be an early-stage venture or entrepreneur with a scalable innovation (primary audience is startups, not established NGOs)
For the Plastic Waste to Value SEA Challenge: operations or focus must be in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, or Vietnam

Project Scope

Solution must address circular economy, plastic waste conversion, or related sustainability themes aligned with the active challenge topic
Solution should demonstrate potential for market scalability and measurable environmental/social impact

Required Documents

Submit application through the specific challenge page on the UpLink platform; no generic applications accepted
Partnership inquiries for co-designing challenges can be submitted separately via the Airtable partner form

Constraints

Monitor uplink.weforum.org for new challenge rounds — the plastic waste SEA challenge is not currently listed as open (as of March 2026)

Historical Context

UpLink has run multiple plastic waste challenges previously, including the Plastic Waste to Value Southeast Asia Challenge targeting Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The platform was active at Davos 2025 and 2026. As of March 2026, the circular economy ecosystem remains listed as an active thematic area on the platform.

Why it was added

WEF innovation platform with specific plastic waste challenges and grant funding in SE Asia, highly relevant for OPF

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Change History

Time	Action	Reason
2026-05-07 09:27	scored	profile=ocean-plastic-forum-v2 score=0.3

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