Bernhard Kowatsch

Head of Innovation Accelerator

Bernhard Kowatsch leads the global United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator, which he created in 2015. He has 18 years of deep experience in building and investing in innovation and technology solutions for global companies, UN organizations and startups.

Under Bernhard’s leadership, the Innovation Accelerator has become the world’s biggest social impact startup accelerator, offering 20 annual programmes to the broader ecosystem on multiple social impact and sustainability issues, such as hunger, climate change, primary healthcare, gender equality, and emergency response.

In 2023 alone, the portfolio of startups and innovations impacted 61 million people globally, with a 2X growth rate every year since launch, raising $295 million in grants for innovations. In addition, the WFP Innovation Accelerator raised 104$M for accelerator programmes including grants to startups and innovations. He also created the global leading fundraising app, ShareTheMeal, which has raised more than $130M and was named as Best App of 2020 by Apple and Google. Prior to that, he advised global technology and industrial goods companies on new business creation, new product development and marketing at the Boston Consulting Group.

Bernhard is a social impact innovation and tech thought leader recognized on global stages, including his TED talk ‘The mindset shift needed to tackle big global challenges’, and regular speaker at conferences like the World Economic Forum, SXSW, XPRIZE and COP.