A big thank you to everyone who came along to the Climate Challenge 2023 Launch Event in the Entopia Building last Friday. The Climate Challenge is a climate-focused entrepreneurship competition for postgrads and postdocs at the University of Cambridge. The launch kicks off eight weeks of training and social sessions for aspiring climate entrepreneurs.
CISL’s newly renovated Canopy workspace for innovation was buzzing with enthusiastic young people exchanging ideas on how they could use their skills to find innovative solutions to tackle the myriad challenges of climate change.
Cambridge Zero Student Engagement Coordinator Beth Simpson fired the starting gun for Climate Challenge 2023 with an introduction to this year’s programme.
Canopy Programme Manager Zoe Loughlin gave an overview of CISL’s Canopy, a community of impact-led startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses accelerating solutions to global sustainability challenges.
Zoe introduced us to new Canopy member, Christopher Jackson, who is the co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Infrastructure. Christopher talked to attendees about how he started his company, offering top tips to future innovators and entrepreneurs.
Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer Dr Nicky Dee of climate innovation group Carbon13 spoke about the importance of climate entrepreneurship and encouraged participants to collaborate with one another.
Finally, Professor Shailaja Fennell inspired the group to consider the social implications of climate entrepreneurship, in line with this year’s theme: “A Just Transition”.
Cambridge Engineering MPhil student Deidre Boodoosingh said the launch event was an amazing opportunity that will inspire her and fellow participants to get cracking on solutions for tackling climate change and supporting a just transition to a sustainable future.
“It was also great to network with like-minded people who all have ideas on innovative solutions and potential business opportunities,” said Boodoosingh, who is studying for an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development and volunteers as the Green Officer Coordinator for Cambridge Climate Society (CCS). “I'm looking forward to the other sessions especially the ideas jam coming up.”
The Climate Challenge is a climate-focused entrepreneurship competition for postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
Participants will have the opportunity to devise a new intervention that addresses the climate crisis through the lens of a just transition. Participants are offered training sessions covering topics from intellectual property rights to pitching ideas. They they can form small teams or work individually to develop scalable solutions to tackle the climate crisis and drive positive change.
Cambridge Zero has partnered with Cambridge Enterprise, Carbon13, the Maxwell Centre, CISL and Energy IRC, sponsored by Moda Living, to deliver this year’s Climate Challenge.
The Climate Challenge continues this week with the following events:
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Ideas Jam – Wednesday 25 January, 5-6:30pm in S1, Alison Richard Building
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An opportunity for potential Climate Challenge participants to get together over pizza to brainstorm some entrepreneurial solutions to our biggest climate issues
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Pub Trip – Thursday 26 January, 7pm at Pickerel Inn Pub, Magdalene Street
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Participants are welcome to come along to our Pub Social to meet one another and potentially form teams for the Climate Challenge.
Find full details of the Climate Challenge on the Cambridge Zero website here: https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/who-we-are/blog/news/climate-challenge-2023-climate-entrepreneurship-competition-just
Sign up for the Climate Challenge 2023 mailing list here: Microsoft Forms