They turn disposable diapers into clean fuel for residential use. Kenyan start-up Leafy Ke won the sixth edition of ClimateLaunchpad, the world’s largest green start-up competition. The second prize went to Maclec from India with their innovative hydrokinetic turbine technology. Enerdrape from Switzerland came in third with their idea for a geo-thermal panel that efficiently captures heat in existing indoor environments located underground and transfers it into renewable heating and cooling to buildings.
ClimateLaunchpad is the green business ideas competition with a primary focus on solving the climate crisis. This year the competition attracted a record number of 2,601 cleantech entrepreneurs applying for National Competitions in 53 countries. Training and coaching was organized in 70 locations across all continents.
In the past 6 years ClimateLaunchpad has generated more than 6,700 ideas that resulted in the creation of over 8,000 jobs within 1,900 start-ups. Next year the goal is to add 17 countries to the competition and grow to 70. TU Delft is one of the main partners of ClimateLaunchpad.
The 2019 Global Final was held in Amsterdam on November 14 and 15. The three Global Final winners received money prizes, and all Top-16 finalists will now enter an Accelerator Programme for cleantech entrepreneurs run by EIT Climate-KIC.
