"Our vision is to reduce hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and fight climate change. Already, we have several innovations to address these challenges, but for this competition, we chose to tackle food tolerance in rice."
— Venuprasad Ramaiah, Head of IRRI-AfricaRice
The $150,000 award for third place was presented to IRRI-AfricaRice for its biotech innovation to help rice farmers protect their crops from flooding, one of the most damaging effects of climate change. IRRI-AfricaRice hopes to improve the rice value chain in Africa, help countries attain rice self-sufficiency, and introduce technologies to Africa’s most vulnerable rice growers.