Strengthening Climate Action In A Global Pandemic
Innovate4Climate Pitch Hub Competition 2020 Grand Finale Event
The World Bank and YouNoodle for a second time in a row partnered together to run this initiative. After several months of having an open call, evaluations, a pandemic that put on hold one of the most important innovation events, the World Bank Group’s Innovate4Climate Pitch Hub Competition 2020 virtually ran its final event on Thursday, June 18th, 2020.
This year the challenge focused on climate-smart cities solutions, with innovations required to be at an M.V.P. stage, to help cities become low-carbon and/or climate-resilient across the energy, food & agriculture, mobility/transportation, waste/water or fintech sectors. These solutions had to demonstrate potential for climate change mitigation or adaptation, feasibility, clear value proposition, implementation, and scalability.
The day was finally here. A global virtual grand finale event, the excitement was everywhere running through everyone’s veins moments before going live.
Five amazing finalists were selected from among over 400 applicants, to present their top pitch in front of a panel of five esteemed judges:
1. Carbon Checkout
2. FreshBox
3. A2P
4. LifePack
5. Sadeem International
The event was co-hosted by Shilpa Prasad, CGO YouNoodle & Pola Shim, The World Bank. After a short introduction of the program, the introduction of the judges, and the mention of the prizes, the recorded pitch videos of each finalist was played, followed by a 5 min live Q&A session.
Riyong Kim (EIT Climate-KIC), Dr. Tara Shirvani (EBRD), Assaf Wahrhaft (UpWest), Martin Wainstein (Yale OpenLab), and Vikram Widge (Climate Policy Initiative), the expert’s panel, moved into another virtual room to have the deliberation session to pick a winner.
In the meantime, last year’s winner, Pipo Reiser, Co-founder Sinba, talked to the audience about life after winning the competition, and how Sinba continues to work toward improving the climate change situation in different countries.
After a quick deliberation between the judges, Berenice van Bronkhorst, Global Director, Climate Change, World Bank, shared some inspiring words before announcing the winners of the challenge.
The 3rd place went to for Agri-2-Power, the 2nd place went to FreshBox, and the 1st place was awarded to Sadeem International.
Sadeem International, a startup focused on early warning solutions for flash floods in urban environments from Saudi Arabia, won first place in the World Bank Group’s Innovate4Climate Pitch Hub 2020 competition.
“Participating in this competition was a very enriching experience; the level of exposure and networking potential is unique. It was also refreshing to see that every day there are more and more startups aligning business with climate innovations, and investors are injecting money to them! Winning the competition made the whole Sadeem team extremely happy, we have a commitment to keep addressing the urban and climate challenges of our generation.” said Esteban Sanchez Canepa, Co-Founder, and CTO at Sadeem International.
The top three winners will amongst other prizes also receive invitations to major industry events and training opportunities.
All five finalists will be part of Innovate4Climate’s Startup Incubation Bootcamp Program, designed and facilitated by their partner, The Venture City, and will be invited to meet with potential investors and venture capital firms, they will have access to Innovate4Climate’s 2021 event, as well.
Finally, Berenice announced the Audience Choice Award, who happened to be Sadeem International as well.
The event closed with a warm celebration-hour with the Innovate4Climate and YouNoodle teams, joined by the finalists and judges.
Overall, it was a fantastic experience for all the participants and the audience. And even though the event was virtual, it turned out to be as exciting as an in-person event could have been opening up a new way of navigating the global pandemic. The most important thing being that nothing, not even a pandemic crisis, can stop innovation from keeping the world move forward.
If you want to watch or relive this exciting event, go to the recording HERE.
See you all next year in Barcelona 2021!
