UN Holds Demo Day for Climate Tech Startups in MENA

The Youth Climate Innovation Labs and Academy held an online demo day for 8 climate tech startups from the Middle East and North Africa. The top 3 teams from the batch received total cash prizes of $6,000 and had the chance to attend the recent COP27.

The Youth Climate Innovation Lab and Academy, a collaboration between the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), SAFEEM, and Seedstars, is a fast-paced three-day event during which youth innovators from across the MENA region.

The event is organized with the support of climate technology, entrepreneurship, and business experts, that explored design thinking tools to ideate and validate innovative solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation within selected sectors and technology fields.

The three-day virtual hackathon successfully brought together 100+ young innovators from the region with a goal to create business solutions for enhanced climate action in response to climate change threats to the MENA region.

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12 teams were selected to participate in the Climate Innovation Academy Program delivered by Seedstars, where participants received follow-on support to implement and scale their solutions.

A demo day at the end of the Climate Innovation Academy Program showcased the prototype solutions of the top 8 startups from the hackathon group. The participating startups were:

1. SWM  (Iraq) - Offers a convenient and eco-friendly waste management solution in Iraq

2. Sun Trip (Egypt) - Provides solar-powered electric bikes for rent as part of its mission to cut carbon emissions from transportation

3. PTF (Lebanon) - A waste-to-energy solution that converts plastic waste into fuel

4. Drive Green  (Lebanon) - Provides a low-cost e-vehicle supply scheme

5. Solar Geek (Jordan) - Reduces energy costs through an efficient and affordable structure of PV thin-film technology which can be used in large-scale and space applications

6. YuDa (Egypt) - An agritech venture that offers vegan leather made from toxic agriculture waste

7. bio-Treasure  (Yemen) - They transform organic waste into green energy and biofertilizer as a replacement for cooking gas for underprivileged Yemeni communities

8. Shams-i (Palestine) - Democratizes access to solar energy with its community-owned solar farm and innovative wheeling and offsetting schemes

From the demo day, only 3 winners were selected to receive total cash prizes of $6,000. Jurors Chris Lyle, Head of Lebanon Advisory at CrossBoundary, and Adaeze Zita Edokwe, Senior Programs Manager at Seedstars, awarded BioTreasure, YuDa, and PTF the grand prize.

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