Negawatt Challenge

One More Chance to be Flown to Barcelona and Pitch to Mayors from all Around the World.

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Dear Negawatt Participant

Thanks again for participating in the Negawatt Weekend and sharing your amazing urban energy efficiency solutions with us. In gratitude for all of your hard work, intellectual energy, and great ideas, the Global  Negawatt Team would like to extend an additional opportunity for you to participate in our challenge competitions “virtual track” and pitch your solution at the 2015 Smart Cities Expo Congress. To do this the World Bank has partnered with the MITClimate CoLab (www.climatecolab.org) to provide a virtual track for participants with the aim of creating a massively open online problem-solving platform to address urban energy efficiency. We’re looking for innovative solutions to age-old urban energy efficiency challenges and seek your talent and know-how to transform cities into more sustainable and energy efficient places.

In order to participate go on ClimateColab.org , enter your team, submit your proposal today, refine your solutions and  help us “flip the switch on urban energy efficiency.” An expert judging panel will review the proposals, provide feedback, and identify a winning team  that will be flown to Barcelona to pitch their ideas to mayors from all around the world at the Smart City Expo Congress. The Climate CoLab Judges’ Choice and Popular Choice  Winners will also receive a special invitation to attend selected sessions at MIT’s SOLVE conference and run the chance to win the Climate CoLab $ 10,000 Grand Prize.

Entries are due June 13th.

We hope to see you on ClimateColab.org and in Barcelona!

Good luck,

The Negawatt Challenge Team!

Kindly note that, this is open only to those who took part in the Negawatt challenge from day one(including those who did not get shortlisted for the Bootcamp).

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Negawatt Challenge Nairobi Bootcamp to Kick-off on April 24th 2015

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Starting April 24th to May 22nd @iBizAfrica Strathmore University will host the Negawatt Bootcamp. This is the semi-final stage of Negawatt Challenge, a global innovation challenge focusing on innovative solutions for energy efficiency challenges in the city.
The challenge is at the semi final stage after four teams advanced from the Negawatt Weekend, a hackthon that sparked innovation in Nairobi with over 80 participants brainstormed over possible energy efficiency solutions for Nairobi. The four teams included:
Plugin: Improve energy consumption patterns by collecting data on user’s electricity consumption, which is then relayed to a mobile app that analyzes usage patterns. Problem statement: Lack of personalized energy audit to guide users on tailored energy savings.
Angaza (Kiswahili for “illuminate”): Provide a hardware solution that allows usage of solar energy in small bits by many users, instead of provision of a bulk and costly solution to a single user. The device also manages and monitors users’ energy consumption. Problem statement: Existing solar systems are expensive for low-income urban dwellers.
Watt Saver: Reduce power consumption by eliminating standby energy losses in fully charged plugged-in gadgets that are not in use at a particular time. These gadgets include phones, cameras, laptops, power banks, Bluetooth devices, and tablets. Problem statement: Energy inefficiencies leading to loss of power through standby energy appliances resulting to high power losses.
Wezesha Huduma (Swahili for “enabling service”): Provide biogas and solar energy to slum dwellers at reduced cost by incorporating affordable and efficient technologies that facilitate production, management and distribution of biogas and solar energy. Problem statement: Lack of affordable alternative sources of energy.
The four teams will receive targeted business, technical, marketing, and communications training for an initial period of four weeks and then continue to strengthen the energy startup community through a series of engagements. There will be a final demo where two top winning teams will be selected for further support to commercialize their solutions and scale them, and the overall winning team will attend an all expenses paid for trip to Barcelona for the World Smart City Expo in November.

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