The Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) congratulates Bio Alkanol Gel as the Winner of ClimateLaunchPad Grand Final 2017. The winners were announced at the awards ceremony held at Limassol, Cyprus.
ClimateLaunchpad (CLP), the world’s largest green tech competition for early-stage start-ups held its Grand Final on Wednesday 18th September 2017 in Cyprus. Three finalists were selected to represent Kenya at the Global Grand Finals. Bio Alkanol Gel from Kenya were declared the 2017 overall winners, beating fifteen other finalists from across the globe, with their idea of producing eco-friendly fuel for domestic use through fermentation of egg shells and waste fruit peelings.
Being the first prize winners, Bio Alkanol Gel won a cash prize of 10,000 euros and will also receive acceleration services from the Climate-KIC Accelerator. CLP’s mission is to unlock the world’s clean tech potential that addresses climate change. The objective is to support early stage businesses to grow their ideas into viable businesses that respond to the effects of Climate Change. For the first time outside Europe, the CLP was extended to include Africa, and in particular Kenya. Kenya Climate Innovation Centre (KCIC) was nominated to facilitate Kenya’s participation in CLP 2017. This year’s competition attracted 36 countries from different continents.
This is the culmination of a journey that started way back in April 2017 when the call for entries was announced. Out of 63 entries, Bio Alkanol Gel was among the 14 teams shortlisted and underwent intensive boot camp training in July followed by a six-week intensive pitch training. The aim of the boot camp was to equip the participants with adequate skills to successfully run their startups. Frans Nauta, ClimateLaunchPad founder, was the lead trainer at the two-day boot camp, together with the national lead for Kenya, Edward Mungai who is also the Kenya Climate Innovation Center, Chief Executive Officer.
During the Kenya national finals held in September in Nairobi, the Bio Alkanol Gel team consisting of Boniface Jiveri and Dr. David Musyimi from Maseno University won the top position. Their concept involves the fermentation of waste fruit peelings converted into eco-friendly fuel for domestic use. The second runners up were Clean Planet, represented by Elis Mabiria and Sarah Onchangu. Their concept was also based on waste management by converting municipal waste into gas using pyrolysis and plasma technology. Position three was taken by Dach, headed by Davies Ateka. His is a bio pesticide and fertilizer that will serve farmers efficiently in protecting their crops from pests.
Kenya was selected as the host country for the Africa edition because of the strides it has taken in incubating and funding startups geared towards addressing climate change in Africa, through institutions such as KCIC. KCIC offers incubation, capacity building services and financing to Kenyan entrepreneurs and new ventures that are developing innovative solutions mainly in the fields of energy, water and agribusiness to address climate change.
