We design, structure,
and manage sustainability
initiatives in Europe and
Latin America.
ABOUT OUR COMPANY AND ITS FOUNDER
ALO&Partners is a Rome (Italy)-based company founded by Andrea Londoño in 2011 with the purpose of creating social, community, environmental, and economic impact in Latin America and Europe. We do this by designing, structuring, managing, and implementing projects and initiatives that offer innovative solutions to ambitious energy, agriculture, culture, and environmental challenges—anything from incorporating Blockchain technology to the coffee production value chain in Brazil with one of the world’s most renowned coffee enterprises, to the creation of a gelato startup working with high-tech and genuine Italian artisan methods in Colombia.
Like a tailor-made haute couture piece of clothing crafted with careful detail by an artisan or sarto (sarto means tailor in Italian), or a human heritage piece of architecture designed by an architect who combines art and function, each initiative that ALO&Partners undertakes is unique and designed to add value, fitting the specific nuanced attributes of the communities and sectors with which we work.
All of our projects become a reality thanks to the collaborative work with allies—this is the reason partners is an integral part of our name. These partners are multi-disciplinary and come from a diverse array of sectors (including governments, private enterprises, academia, nonprofit organizations, and multi-lateral institutions, among others) who have the experience, knowledge, skills, credibility, and a longstanding trajectory in each of their fields and industries; but above all, share ALO&Partners’s impact mission and purpose.
ANDREA LONDOÑO
Andrea Londoño Osorio is an Architect and Project Manager with many years of experience leading projects in rural areas in Latin America. She has always shown a profound commitment to social development and education. She dedicated the earlier part of her career to diplomacy at the Colombian Embassy in Rome liaising with UN agencies such as the WFP and FAO. In 2011 she founded ALO&Partners a consultancy company that focuses on coordinating specialist teams and organizations in projects in rural communities in the sectors of energy, agriculture, education, culture and human rights through the introduction of disruptive technologies. In 2019 she completed an MIT Executive Program on Blockchain Technologies with the focus on business innovation and application.
OUR WORK
We know that any initiative that has major ambitious is not easy.
Throughout the last decade, we have built highly specialized
knowledge that enables us to navigate the complexity and nuance
of each challenge we face.
Our approach to each project is anchored in three inter-connected
key actions that seek to bolster initiatives that generate economic,
environmental, and social impact and value.
1
WE
IDENTIFY
STRATEGIC
OPPORTUNITIES AND
BROKER VALUE-ADDED
CONNECTIONS
We permanently assess the global context, trends, challenges, and opportunities around sustainability;
and we undertake a deep and close exploration of diverse territories in Latin America. Alongside
communities of entrepreneurs, farmers, artisans, and their families, we select a series of challenges
and opportunities in the areas of energy, agriculture, education, and culture that lead to the creation
of positive social, environmental, and economic impact. Oftentimes, these are opportunities that are
crystal clear to us, but that big decisionmakers have neither discovered nor explored. We connect these
opportunities to the interests of organizations, companies, and governments in Europe who are committed
to Latin America from their social, commercial, environmental, and economic responsibilities and role.
This allows us to carry out a curation of a set of specific and very special strategic areas of interest,
in which an initiative could lead to generating significant positive impact. We place strategic topics on
the high-level agendas of key stakeholders in governments, large enterprises, and with investing power,
identifying spaces of dialogue and visibility where we can showcase and tell the stories of the territories,
people, communities, and organizations with whom we collaborate. This leads to the uncovering of new
opportunities to scale and amplify our impact.
How have we
achieved this?
CEA
In 2015 we made our entry into the renewable energy sector. After traveling through Colombia,
exploring territories with incredible energetic resources, and analyzing strategic opportunities
in the country with the potential of attracting European interest, we opened a new door to tend a
bridge between the French Commission of Atomic and Alternative Energy (CEA-Liten)—one of the most
important energy institutions in Europe—and a series of key stakeholders in Colombia
advancing remarkable renewable energy innovation projects in the country. This is how the Colombia is
Energy initiative was born in partnership with RutaN, a leading Colombian innovation institution.
Through a series of strategic business missions led and organized by ALO&Partners wherein Colombian
companies visited CEA-Liten in France; and the participation of key leaders of CEA-Liten in high-level
interactions with companies, and national and local authorities in Colombia, critical relationships
were created that led to the interest and incursion of CEA-Liten in Colombia, seeking to develop
renewable energy initiatives and projects in the country.
MOKA
Thanks to our participation in some of the most important agriculture and food spaces and fairs
in Colombia and in Europe, we noted that there was an underlying opportunity that had never been
discovered or elevated before: to strategically leverage the infinite wealth of biodiverse products
in Colombia as raw material that could be transformed with cutting edge technology and the Italian
artisanal savoir faire of gelato. This is how FONTE was born in 2019: a space created by ALO&Partners
in the framework of Expo Agrofuturo—one of the most important agricultural fairs in Latin America—to
connect gelato raw material transformation technology with the suppliers of Colombian fruit grown by
rural producers highly committed to quality.
Years later, with the desire to scale the original idea with which we developed FONTE, we created
Moka: a space that happens in the framework of Expo Agrofuturo to connect knowledge, latest trands,
innovation, and raw material transformation technology of European companies with coffee and
cacao—products in which Colombia is a global production leader. Moka is a space that consists of
networking, talks, visits to coffee and cacao production farms, and other activities that build links
and value-added exchanges between Colombian producers and global raw material transformation technology
companies.
WE MOBILIZE
KNOWLEDGE
AND RESOURCES
2
We firmly believe that the needs and desires of the communities and territories where we work,
must always be front and center. We are involved in projects that generate tangible impact and
long-term benefits for society and the environment. This is why we strategically lead and manage
the implementation of each project in which we are involved from beginning to end. We do this in
order to ensure that every single element is implemented with detailed precision, and that we not
only fulfill but go beyond all of our commitments.
Thanks to the professional network we have cultivated across Europe and Latin America for more
than one decade since we entered the market, we consolidated a multi-disciplinary group of allies
with high levels of knowledge, expertise, credibility, and trajectory—our partners. We also seek
and manage funding, resources, and relevant technical assistance needed to accomplish all of the
goals we set out in each project that we undertake, and to ensure that any obstacle or barrier is
addressed with precision and preparedness.
How have we
achieved this?
ITALY
PRESENT
AT
EXPO AGROFUTURO
After witnessing firsthand the great opportunities that emerge when European companies exchange with key business opportunities in Colombia and Latin America, ALO&Partners led and strategically managed efforts to prospect, facilitate dialogue, coordinate work missions, and mobilize resources and networks to make Italy the invited country of honor at Expo Agrofuturo. No government or large company had ever created this opportunity before, and ALO&Partners—who represented Italy at this important fair—brokered value-added connections for Italian companies seeking to open new markets in Latin America. This important achievement was preceded by the partnership that ALO&Partners forged between MacFrut—one of the most important fruit and vegetable exhibitions in Italy and Europe—and Expo Agrofuturo.
ÁTTIMO
Leveraging our knowledge of the agricultural sector, and expertise in technology and
innovation as mediums for raw material transformation into high-value products we asked
ourselves: How is it possible that Colombia primarily consumes industrial ice cream
instead of taking advantage of the privilege of having access to high-quality
locally-produced ingredients to be transformed into gelato—an industry that generates
millions of euros in Italy and Europe?
This exploration led us to partner up with local actors, investors, and some of the most
specialized companies in gelato technology and processes in Italy, who united to create
Áttimo, a Colombian company that makes and sells Italian gelato in Colombia. Áttimo combines
high-quality Colombian ingredients grown by local producers with the best gelato-making
techniques in Italy, in a business model that is breaking ground in the Colombian market
and elevating local products and ingredients through innovative methods and Italian
artisanal knowhow in raw material transformation.
3
WE BOLSTER OUR INITIATIVES WITH NEXT GENERATION INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
3
We firmly believe that technology is an accelerator and amplifier of impact. We are convinced that
it is not only possible to leverage, but also to bolster solutions using highly advanced and
innovative technological tools and developments—from using unused television waves to bring internet
to remote rural communities, to artificial intelligence and Internet of Things for agriculture, to
Blockchain as a traceability tool in an agricultural production chain.
We closely observe, deeply study, and comprehensively explore ways in which new technological
developments can serve social, community, and environmental impact. We tend bridges and forge
solid relationships with large companies, organizations, institutions, and startups who study
and develop innovative tools so that they analyze the challenges we identify and propose new
ways in which their developments add value to bolster the initiatives and projects that we lead.
How have we
achieved this?
technological transformation of coffee
In some of our business missions, as we made our way through several rural remote territories,
we could see firsthand, many of the challenges of communities living far away from urban areas:
little to no attention from the government and no access to basic opportunities to education and
health that are taken for granted in larger urban centers. This is how, in 2017, we arrived at a
place that is not known for its coffee production activities and that suffered for many years, the
negative consequences of the Colombian armed conflict: the Department of Meta in Colombia, where a
very special variety of high-quality coffee can be found.
In the coffee-producing municipalities of Mesetas, Lejanías and San Juan de Arama, we led efforts
to implement the Coffee 5.0 Technology Transformation pilot, consolidating an
Alliance between: Lavazza (one of the most important Coffee roasters in the world) who had been
working in-territory with Carcafé; Microsoft; xFarm, a European agritech startup; and Makaia, a
Colombian nonprofit organization with longstanding trajectory and leadership undertaking social
projects in rural and remote territories.
Alongside Microsoft, we brought internet connectivity to the area, leveraging unused television
waves known as Television White Spaces (TVWS). Generating access to internet in these municipalities
had two key goals: (i) to incorporate technology to coffee growers’ production processes and thus
improve the quality of information and data available to inform better decision-making and conversely
improve productivity of crops; and (ii)to offer the community surrounding coffee farms access to
internet to support children and youth education, and offer health services such as telemedicine and
tele-diagnostics to individuals.
Once internet was connected, xFarm installed sensors and specialized agricultural technological
devices working with Internet of Things (IoT) technology in 5 pilot coffee crops. These devices
produce key information for all stakeholders in the coffee value chain to make decisions and take
opportune action to improve the productivity, quality, and eventually earnings, of coffee for
coffee growers.
digital
coffee-growing
information ecosystem leveraging blockchain technology
Inspired by what we saw technology can do for coffee in Colombia, in 2020 we started a new
project in partnership with Lavazza (and their 1895 coffee brand), xFarm, and Bip (consulting
firm specialized in innovation and technology) to take Blockchain technology to coffee-growing
farms in Brazil. The purpose of this project was to develop a coffee blend that incorporated
Blockchain to the most important steps of its production chain. Leveraging sensors and devices
that measure key agricultural conditions, we managed to incorporate highly trustworthy and
traceable data related to coffee production in two farms in Brazil so that key actors in the
value chain (including Lavazza as a roaster, buyers, baristas, and end-consumers) could have
access to information on the origins, processes, resources utilized, safety standards, roasting,
climate and ground conditions, ingredients, transportation, and handling of each coffee grain
in the blend.
In a not so distant future, through Blockchain technology roasters, consumers, and coffee lovers
at large will not only be able to create digital wallets with cryptocurrency to support producers
by increasing their revenue—a fair and just reflection of the precious work that they undertake
alongside their coffee-growing communities—, recognizing their commitment to reach high production
standards, and acknowledging their important role in sustainable social and environmental growth,
but will also be able to actively participate in the dissemination of stories (using real,
trustworthy, and immutable data) of the beauty of coffee-growing zones—an additional incentive
for producers, roasters, and consumers to protect our planet and the communities that inhabit it.
This promising initiative demonstrated that Blockchain technology gives a voice to coffee producers
and creates tangible value for the sustainability and impact of their product, which is why we scaled
this initiative to Cuba with Lavazza and their Tierra! Cuba brand, building a digital information
ecosystem anchored in Blockchain technology such as the one we created for Brazil—this time with 170+
coffee-producing farms in four regions of Cuba.
For ALO&Partners, in the universe of sustainability, there is an infinity of opportunities to take action. As humanity and the world evolve, new needs and challenges emerge that usually impact the most vulnerable people and territories.
We cannot see limits to the contributions that we can make in multiple sectors, but over the course of the last decade, we have become experts in key areas:
AGRICULTURE
ENERGY
FASHION
CULTURE
ENVIRONMENT
FOOD SECURITY
TECHNOLOGY
Our Partners are companies, individuals, organizations, and initiatives that share our vision and purpose of creating value.
