Climate Innovation Centre opens Climate Launchpad 2020 competition

Climate Launchpad, the biggest global green business ideas competition, has opened applications for the 2020 edition in Ghana.

Climate Launchpad 2020, which will be run in Ghana and 55 other countries, gives the opportunity to aspiring entrepreneurs to share their ideas and solutions to climate change and through the competition get a shot at growing them. In Ghana, it is organized and executed by Ashesi University’s Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC).

To qualify to compete in Climate Launchpad 2020, an applicant should have an innovation in renewable energy, energy efficiency, food and agriculture, water, transportation and industrial technology.

Shortlisted applicants then embark on a rigorous training journey which includes an intensive two-day boot camp and six coaching sessions. The module and structure of the boot camp and coaching session are designed not only to ensure ideas are fine-tuned for the national finals but also serve as a ground for equipping the entrepreneur with basic knowledge for growing their business.

The best two ideas in the Ghana national finals will compete in the Africa regional competition and then the global finals. At the global finals, the top-16 ideas are admitted to the Climate-KIC’s Accelerator, a programme focused at cleantech commercialisation.

Last year, the Climate Launchpad received over 50 applications into the competition in Ghana, with 15 business ideas eventually selected to partake in the bootcamp and coaching sessions. Sabon Sake, the eventual winner of the Ghana finals also made it to the top 15 in the global finals held in Amsterdam in November 2019.

Speaking on the opening of applications in Ghana for Climate Launchpad 2020, the Nation Lead for the competition, Ahuma Cabutey Adodoadji, GCIC’s Marketing and Communications Director, said “The need to find innovative ideas and solutions to the global challenge of climate change is more pressing than ever before. We take the threat of climate change lightly at our own risk. Our weather patterns have changed and continue to change. The harmattan season has changed, rainfall patterns have changed, and this is an indication that climate change effects will impact strongly on livelihoods, food security, socio-economic lives and infrastructure.

So, we can only be thankful to an organization like the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre and Climate Launchpad competition which are at the fore-front of encouraging the development of solutions that aid in the adaptation and mitigation of climate change.”