The African regional finals of the leading Climate Launchpad (CLP) competition took place this afternoon hosted virtually by the Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC).
The event had an impressive lineup with some of the best cleantech business solutions from the seven participating countries (Kenya, Ghana, Mauritius, Egypt, Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda). Before today’s Grand Finale, more than 2.500 nominees were going through a rigorous judging process in their home countries to win the national round. The winners from these rounds were then further ranked by an international jury.
The regional finals event was hosted by the Kenya Climate Innovation Centre together with the regional partners.
Tanzania won the ultimate prize, Mozambique came in second place and Kenya ranked third.
These winners will have the chance to compete globally with winners from other regions of the Climate Launchpad competition 2020.
In addition to representing Africa at the Global Grand Final, the overall winner of the Africa Regional Final will receive a cash prize of KSh 500,000, the runner up gets KSh 300,000 while the second runners up will bag a prize of KSh 200,000.
- The Overall Winner: Green Venture (Tanzania)
Green Venture creates durable and affordable plastic recycled interlocking bricks that are used by construction companies to provide low-cost housing to low-income people. Their production process uses high technology plastic extruders which provides quality products with the maximum environmental impact. They are building houses while cleaning the environment. In addition, the Green venture creates employment to the local people in waste collection and manufacturing.
The bricks produced by Green Venture take less time to produce and also less time to install compared to traditional bricks hence make construction less time consuming.
- The Runner Up: BioMec (Mozambique)
BioMec produces high performance prosthesis based on plastic collected from the oceans. They aim to increase access to artificial limbs at reasonable prices, using a technology that increases compatibility between the residual limb and prosthesis creating comfort and consuming 90% less time, while recycling plastic wastes in the ocean.
They hope to improve people’s lives so they can feel and experience things that would otherwise be challenging without a well-designed prosthesis, giving them confidence and productivity.
BioMec believe in climate change, recycling and harmony with nature by re-purposing harmful plastic materials to lift people’s lives to provide biomechanics solutions for biomedical engineering
- The second runners up: Pine Kazi (Kenya)
Pine Kazi is a new innovative social venture that uses pineapple waste to craft a range of eco-friendly products like shoes and bags which we sell to eco conscious millennials around the world.
Did you know that pineapples fruits that we all love to eat produce 766 million tonnes of post-harvest waste annually which is either eliminated through burning or decomposition? This releases 1.8 million metric tons of CO2 and methane which are harmful greenhouse gases. It is with this understanding that Pine Kazi was created.
