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Cambia's Mission & Ethos

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Recent news

The Initiative for Open Innovation (IOI) has officially been launched
The Initiative for Open Innovation was launched at the UN sponsored meeting on Intellectual Property and Public Policy Issues, in Geneva July 13 & 14.

Cambia featured on ABC's Catalyst
ABC TV's Catalyst featured Cambia in a recent episode.

Joint effort with Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
Cambia and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) are working together...

More news from Cambia

Meet the team

We have highly skilled teams of Intellectual Property, Informatics and Molecular Biology experts with excellent administrative and executive support.

Find out more about our team

Mission

Our mission is to democratize innovation: to create a more equitable and inclusive capability to solve problems using science and technology.

Ethos

Our institutional ethos is built around an awareness of the need and opportunity for local commitment to achieving lasting solutions to food security, agricultural, public health and environmental problems. We envision a situation in which the broadest community of problem solvers are empowered with new technologies to become innovators in developing their own solutions to the challenges they face - solutions for which they feel ownership.

clear vision of what aspects of the status quo we wish to change and what positive outcomes we wish to see guides our activities.

  • Symptoms
    Nutritional deficiencies, food shortages, crop failures, population growth, poverty, environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity... all are often perceived as major problems facing the world today. In fact, these are only symptoms of the real problem.

  • Problem
    The real problem lies with our way of interacting with the natural world and each other.  Agriculture is increasingly uncoupled from the environmental systems in which it operates. The available diversity - biological, genetic, ecosystem and social - has not been adequately embraced and the imagination and commitment of people and societies has not been sufficiently engaged in the process of innovation. This is not sustainable in the long term for environments or societies. Working towards a solution...

  • Steps towards a Solution: Cambia
    Cambia, a small institution, can have a disproportionately large effect when its interventions are catalytic. Cambia does this through strategic design, development and delivery of new technologies, competencies and policies.

Due in part to the cumbersome and expensive nature of many of the technologies available and the legal and policy umbrellas in which they act, transnational companies are increasingly centralising control and production of life sciences products, and are thus dominating the technology landscape in agriculture and health. This has resulted in unprecedented public concerns over the new technologies used and missed opportunities to use new technologies for public good, especially in less developed countries.

Cambia wishes to see a vibrant public and private sector contributing myriad solutions to diverse challenges worldwide.   This vision requires new enabling technologies, paradigms, policies, information and decision support that can break the logjam stifling creative business and public initiatives.