November 27, 2023・4 min read

TomorrowNow Poised to Accelerate Climate Adaptation for 20 Million Farmers in Africa

The additional $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be used to improve quality and access to weather intelligence for farmer-facing organizations and help 20 million African farmers adapt to climate change by 2027

TomorrowNow, a climate-tech nonprofit, is excited to announce an additional $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand its anchor program, Osiris, and further unlock and sustain the transformative potential of next-generation weather and climate data services across Africa.

Osiris represents a foundational strategic investment to enhance the value, adoption, and long-term viability of localized weather forecasts and historical climate datasets in Africa aimed at empowering the Small-Scale Producer (SSP) ecosystem.

Following a $2 million grant in 2021 from the Gates Foundation, TomorrowNow (together with their partners) has helped 1 million African farmers to adapt to climate change and demonstrated that improved access to localized weather data is as important to food system applications as quality and accuracy.

In three years, TomorrowNow aims to impact 20 million smallholder farmers by delivering value-added weather intelligence services across the African continent to research organizations, NGOs, multilateral organizations, private service providers, farmer cooperatives, and government agencies serving SSPs.

Philip Frost, the Climate Resilience Lead at TomorrowNow, shares, “We are delighted to see donors such as the Gates Foundation place huge value on weather and climate data services in Africa as a key solution to climate change and local prosperity.”

Leveraging significantly improved historical datasets, observations, and short-term and seasonal weather forecasts from global technology companies such as Tomorrow.io, Salient Predictions, and Arable, as well as working closely with local government and local private/NGO partners, this initiative is set to revolutionize farming in the region. It will democratize access to next-generation weather and climate information for frontline organizations serving farmers as well as scientists pushing new innovations for the food system, improving crop simulation for climate-resilient seed breeding to regenerative farming practices.

“The Osiris project led by TomorrowNow has empowered CGIAR by providing direct access to a comprehensive and localized historical reanalysis dataset for East Africa. This has shown the potential to significantly enhance the outcomes of seed breeding analytics for our trial sites. The high-resolution data tailored for East Africa has proven invaluable, enabling us to refine our methodologies and substantially improve the precision and effectiveness of our work in the region.” – Kauê de Sousa, Alliance Bioversity-CIAT (CGIAR).”

By enabling access to weather intelligence for frontline farmer-facing organizations and key research organizations such as CGIAR, fueled by transformative philanthropy, local farming communities in Africa can contribute to next-generation food systems that will be sustainable, improve crop yields, and ensure a more reliable future for all.

About TomorrowNow.org

TomorrowNow.org is a climate-tech nonprofit focused on unlocking and sustaining the transformative potential of next-generation weather intelligence for communities most impacted by climate change. Transformative weather technologies, powered by AI and satellites, are rapidly emerging but they

will not reach vulnerable communities until large, systems-level gaps are solved. TomorrowNow is on a mission to urgently address these gaps.

Media contact: Kenneth Chepkwony: kenneth.chepkwony@tomorrownow.org

Georgina Campbell Flatter

Georgina is the co-founder and Executive Director of TomorrowNow.org - a global non profit leveraging transformative philanthropy to connect next generation weather and climate technologies with communities in need. Prior to TomorrowNow.org, Georgina spent a decade at MIT where she was a senior lecturer and led global initiatives designed to bridge technology and social impact. Georgina has worked on many innovation initiatives for organisations including: the MIT Legatum Center, MIT REAP, the XPRIZE Foundation, the World Bank, USA Dept of Energy, MIT, Harvard and Oxford University. Georgina is mother of two, passionate about empowering the next generation of STEM leaders, with a focus on women and youth, and is an active member of her local community. She acts as trustee and advisory board member for several charities (The Darwin Centre, Mama Foundation, FOSPs) and is a local Parish Councillor. She read Material Science at Trinity College Oxford and Technology and Policy at MIT.