Climate Labs seeks to strengthen the applied research and innovation capacities of ten partner universities from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia through the design and implementation of Social Innovation Labs for mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change. In a network with Universities from Spain, France, and Italy, plus Ashoka as a non-academic expert partner, the project seeks to build interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder labs that will institutionalize the applied research and innovation for climate change in the territories the partners are inserted. In a term of three years, the project expects to train scholars, students and staff members in Latin America, who will form changemaker leader teams, design and implement labs according to the needs, strengths, challenges and characteristics of the institutions and territories they serve. In this period, each university will also implement a pilot project, get connected with international relevant networks as well as other national institutions, build the physical and virtual infrastructure of the lab, and develop strategies for the sustainability and scalability of the project. The project seeks, ultimately, to build strong and connected areas of innovation and applied research within universities impacting in the overall capacities and strategies of the partner countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

FIWARE Mexico aims at enhancing FIWARE-driven collaboration between EU and Mexico, based on the adoption, deployment and improvement of FIWARE in Mexico as a framework that will open up new horizons for future cooperation in the ICT domain. The Mexican FIWARE Lab node operated by INFOTEC is part of the FIWARE infrastructure, which facilitates the use of the FIWARE platform for local innovative players. However, to bring new Mexican players into the FIWARE arena and create a sustainable collaborative environment between Europe and Mexico, it is necessary to set and manage the proper conditions needed to support the pillars of FIWARE in Mexico to go beyond the Lab initiative. FIWARE Mexico proposes a new approach to actively and strategically engage all relevant stakeholders in supporting the uptake of FIWARE technologies for sustainable collaboration between EU and Mexico. The project will establish Working Groups to engage innovators from the industry, research communities and end users, such as Smart Cities players, in the FIWARE ecosystem. In parallel, dedicated FIWARE technology’ training programmes will be implemented for developers, integrators and contributors, embracing the whole open source community, which will facilitate the adoption of FIWARE technologies and the development of applications to be commercialized in Mexico and EU. Also FIWARE Mexico will focus on key aspects that until now have only partly been addressed in the EU-Mexico policy dialogue, such as the identification of ICT priorities and FIWARE topics of strategic interest for future R&I collaboration. The FIWARE Mexico consortium is in a unique position to leverage the required expertise, foster engagement with key players, ensure a shared vision, encourage networking, reach a wide range of policy-makers, industrial and economic leaders throughout EU and Mexico, and mobilize resources towards result-oriented actions that will significantly reinforce the EU-Mexico collaboration in FIWARE.