Tech Challenge: Women for Climate
Tech Challenge
The Women4Climate Tech Challenge is an international contest open to any woman designing an innovative, climate-focused tech solution. C40 will support the innovation community in driving action in cities by promoting women’s projects to take climate action. Complementary to the Women4Climate Mentorship Programme, the key goal of the Tech Challenge is to promote concrete solutions with a measurable impact in cities.
Importantly, C40 will provide innovators and entrepreneurs with access to urban experimentation. C40's support will be custom-designed for each solution, depending on the project’s level of maturity and the needs: acceleration, incubation, residence within the city, co-design of experimentations with citizens and users.
Finalists and winners will receive financial or technical support from C40 and its partners, acceleration or implementation in C40's cities. All finalists chosen by the jury will be flown to pitch their projects in Paris before a panel of mayors and special guest judges. The winners chosen by this panel will receive assistance from and be promoted by C40, partners and cities in the next phase of experimentation and implementation.
Who can apply?
The contest is open to all adult women, including but not limited to students, innovators and professionals. However, the Women4Climate initiative will give preference to women who don’t already have access to funding, active networks or relationships with city officials.
To be eligible your project has to be a women-led project. While we understand teams might be mixed, the woman applying, will need to be, if not founder or CEO, playing a leading role. C40 uses an inclusive definition of “woman” and “female”. Transwomen, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who identify, have identified, or have been identified as female or woman are welcome to apply.
What are we looking for?
A wide understanding of urban sustainability, inclusive of mobility, food, waste, water, buildings, urban farming and air quality, will be respected in project proposals. The nature of the proposed solutions themselves is open as well. Your tech project can be at the prototype stage or have already launched.
Solutions can be tangible, educational or pedagogical and should have a clear city focus.
Priority will be given to applications with measurable impacts in terms of CO2 emissions reduction.
TIMELINE
+ Apply before November 30, 2018
+ Pitch in front of mayors from the most ambitious cities of the world in February of 2019
+ See your project adopted by a city in 2019