UpLink

UpLink is a crowdsourcing platform built through cooperation between the World Economic Forum (WEF), Salesforce and Deloitte. Its aim is to bring together entrepreneurs and experts to source ideas and innovations in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Crowdsourcing is used to gather  new ideas and previously unused sources of information and talent and the World Economic Forum (WEF) is now using ’crowd technology’ to look for solutions to the most pressing problems of the modern world.

The UpLink platform was presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos and will be made available to the public next month.  It will enable participation and involvement by  international organisations, governments, research institutes, companies, businesses, social groups, social activists and other stakeholders and contribute to initiatives for implementing the UN Sustainable Development Agenda by 2030.

The UN has 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 related tasks for responding to the world’s most important social problems and seeks to  address them by improving the effectiveness of healthcare, promoting education, eliminating inequality and stimulating economic development. They will be accompanied by initiatives aimed at, among other things, climate change and the protection of oceans and forestry resources. The goals were adopted by world leaders at the historic UN summit in 2015. UpLink will be a digital platform for the exchange of experiences and information regarding the biggest problems and obstacles to achieving these goals. It will enable all interested parties to promote, support and even finance sustainable development initiatives.

The crowdsourcing nature of the platform facilitates cooperation between individuals and institutions with similar objectives, and in particular with groups that have not yet been in contact with each other. A community has already been created to address SDG 14. "Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development". It brings together people interested in the global maritime economy and countering the effects of climate change.   

UpLink may be of particular interest to companies with an agenda and policies for corporate social responsibility (CSR).