Announcing the Climate Smart Cities Challenge finalists

ZaiNar tracks the location of phones, cars, drones, IoT, and physical assets. ZaiNar leverages patented digital signal processing techniques to locate radio devices in 3D with meter-level accuracy. ZaiNar works across real-world environments to track phones indoors and in dense cities, vehicles without line-of-sight, and assets using IoT devices in dynamic industrial environments.

Beemetrix is a startup created in 2019 based in France and specialized in developing end-to-end AIoT solutions for analyzing sensor data in near real-time ranging from accessing data and integrating AI models to building personalized dashboards for monitoring and supervision such as Fleet Management and Smart City. Its platforms are: ThingWings, an AIoT platform; Minerworx, a Data Science platform; and TracThing, a Fleet Management platform. They have been selected recently as one of the top AI startups in Europe (France, Sweden, and Germany) that have AI at their core or exhibit a significant usage of AI.

Scipopulis is a data analysis, integration and visualization company, with a goal to make cities smarter by using information intensively for decision making. Since 2014 their mission is to build cities that are more human, inclusive, sustainable and integrated, using technology, urbanism and design. They have a large experience analyzing mobility data, and in their portfolio have organizations such as the World Bank and IDB, and cities such as São Paulo. They have developed Trancity, a platform that streamlines mobility data processing, helping public managers to monitor, plan and evaluate the impact of changes in the bus network.

ClearRoad is ensuring funding for transportation systems through a new type of road tolling that can be deployed quickly and efficiently. Leveraging connected vehicles rather than physical infrastructure, ClearRoad enables road usage pricing, charging drivers for their actual use of the road. They operate in Oregon state and Fremont, California and pursuing adjacent opportunities in congestion pricing and electronic tolling.

Heavy rains cause deaths and their impacts affect the quality of life of people in large and medium-sized cities around the world. Cities are generally not prepared for these catastrophic events. Surveys indicate a worsening trend for the next few years. These events cause chaos and hundreds of deaths. Wiiglo is a startup that helps cities mitigate these problems by generating accurate information. The platform collects and processes a large amount of data and provides valuable information on how cities behave. They generate early warning for adapting to climate change and its impacts on urban mobility.

FIA Smart Driving Challenge create solutions, based on their AI, for mobility all over the world where they can measure, predict and optimize driver behavior through analyzing patterns in their ever-growing database (today consisting of over 7bn unique driver DNAs).

RUNWITHIT Synthetics creates synthetic digital models of complex systems to support strategic decision makers facing disrupted futures around energy, mobility and resilience. RWI’s Synthetic Modelling Platform (SMP) brings to life limitless, hyper-localized scenarios for any global city, their people, businesses, traffic, air quality, weather, infrastructure, policies, new and existing technologies, even disasters. It enables “in sillico” trials to calculate all of the impacts informing and accelerating novel, de-risked, effective innovation adoption, policy and investments, to rapidly design and optimize their futures in sustainability, equity and resilience.

SingulaCity works to unite cities and technology into a single entity that becomes increasingly smart, efficient and sustainable, both for its citizens and the planet. To this end, they develop solutions based on the latest technological advances, always putting people at the centre.

DecisionBrain is a high-tech company, combining Optimization, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques to create innovative and customizable AI-based decision support solutions that drive operational efficiency. Their mission is to help their customers make better decisions and grow their business with advanced analytics solutions. Their solutions are easily customizable to the specific needs of each company and deliver significant ROI. By focusing on optimizing resources to perform a given demand, their solutions generate a significant positive environmental impact reducing the carbon footprint of their customers’ operations. Their expertise is in Logistics, Manufacturing and Workforce.

Greencore Construction designs, manufactures and builds Climate Positive houses that lock up more carbon than they emit at the construction stage and are net-zero energy in use.

Bioregional Hill is a Limited Liability Partnership between Bioregional Homes, a wholly owned subsidiary of charity and social enterprise Bioregional, which has pioneered zero carbon homes for over 20 years, and the Hill group. Hill is an award-winning housebuilder and one of the leading developers in London and the south of England, delivering both private for sale and affordable homes in partnership with government, local authorities and housing associations.

We Can Make is part of Knowle West Media Centre (a community innovation centre) rooted in Knowle West – a council-built estate in Bristol. Their mission is to imagine and build new – more collective, more regenerative- approaches to co-creating the homes and neighbourhoods we need. They’ve worked across the arts, planning, architecture and digital fabrication to develop a system agnostic factory for localising MMC production of homes, established a new way to unlock micro-sites for community-led development, and created a ‘kit of parts’ for growing neighbourhood social infrastructure- from pavilions to bike stores. They’re a proud NESTA New Radical.

igloo Regeneration is the UK’s leading ethical real estate organisation, a BCorps whose purpose is for People, Place and Planet. igloo founded the world’s first responsible real estate fund (according to the UN), the igloo Regeneration Fund. igloo comprises an FCA authorised fund manager that manages funds like the Chrysalis Fund in Liverpool City Region investing in positive impact real estate developments, and a development manager working with financial institutions, local authorities and communities to deliver residential neighbourhoods that deliver positive impact for people, place and planet on brownfield sites in deprived neighbourhoods in the UK’s top 20 cities.

EDAROTH (“everybody deserves a roof over their head”) is Atkins’ subsidiary established to deliver turnkey development solutions for carbon-zero social and affordable homes on brownfield land that would otherwise be unviable. They encourage clients to retain the freehold to generate revenues and create capital value for the long term and ensure enduring outcomes that build prosperous, healthy and sustainable communities. Their MMC family of homes is designed and engineered by Atkins. Their innovative, precision engineering approach to design, control of the supply chain, and use of offsite panelisation and onsite assembly gives a low price, high quality, carbon zero homes.

changebuilding is a collaborative built environment design practice focused on developing and delivering lower carbon and more sustainable solutions across the industry. The practice partners with other expert and progressive businesses and individuals to bring a systems based approach to projects. The practice moves away from the large in-house team model of consulting to active interdisciplinary working across he whole value chain without barriers. It works with and for academic, clients bodies, other design firms, contractors and product manufacturers and civil society to affect rapid change. It is a co-founder of the associated Positive Collective focused on regenerative housing solutions.

Parametric Solutions is a Swedish startup within the proptech field. Founded in august 2020, the company helps architects and property developers to make informed decisions in early stages of the design process. They use smart algorithms and AI to create a catalogue of design alternatives for residential development in a SaaS platform to aid the decision-making process. Parametric Solutions make generative design understandable and accessible and enables architects, home builders and property developers to make informed decisions based on data. Put simply, through Parametric Solutions, architecture and data science can join forces to create more sustainable urban environments and cities.

Brighter Places is a Bristol-based housing association committed to delivering affordable housing to passivhaus standard.

The Microgrid Foundry Initiative is a joint venture company founded in early 2019 that provides new-build housing developers with a replicable blueprint to partner with third party investors/operators of energy assets; to support the installation of maximal renewables deployments while enabling these investments to be off-balance sheet for the housebuilders. The Joint Venture Partners are Bristol based Clean Energy Prospector (Cepro), a leading pioneer of domestic community microgrids, Bristol Energy Cooperative (BEC), one of the UK’s largest community energy companies and Chelwood Community Energy, a community solar developer in North Somerset.

Nodono is a construction technology company that helps real estate developers to build climate neutral buildings without compromising budgets or deadlines. They use AI to guide real estate developers through the construction process and helps them make climate smart decisions on structures and materials that are cheap and efficient. Their goal is to make the entire construction industry climate neutral while accelerating construction speed, to make climate neutral housing cheap and efficient.

ilke Homes are pioneering the future of homes. Creating beautiful, sustainable spaces built to last.

Their stunning homes are designed to reflect the local character, built at top speed and to a quality that’s unlike any other.

Together, they’re shaking up the house building industry and tackling the housing shortage. By bringing together technology and people, they’re creating wonderful places, designed to adapt to those who need it and to fit seamlessly with the local area.

Innerspace Homes Group are a new generation of housebuilder bringing the design, delivery and digitisation of homes into the 21st century. They are an eci-tech business (energy, construction and information technology) using factory build processes to create a more predictable and less risky development value chain, design and green tech to provide decarbonised healthy homes and data and system thinking to help build a low-carbon, climate-resilient, just, and inclusive places.  They are known for their design-led approach, environmental ethos and a passion for creating homes that benefit people and our planet.

Bristol Community Land Trust (BCLT) is a not for profit organisation that builds affordable, sustainable, homes and inclusive, resilient communities. They do this by acquiring and developing land ourselves, but also by working in partnership with other groups and organisations to bring land into community hands. Their Community-led Homes West (CLH West) service is the community-led housing (CLH) enabling hub for the West of England. Operating across Bristol, Bath and North-east Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, it provides training, technical support and access to funding to help and support groups to make their CLH ambitions a reality.

The Ecoclime Group is a listed Swedish property technology company, that has developed and provided property technology solutions for building energy effectivization since 2013. In 2020, the Ecoclime Group had 80 employees and a turnover of 16 MEUR. The company has a strong R&D-focus and has cooperated with academia and industry stakeholders since 2013 in a series of R&D projects co-financed by the Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Innovation Agency and the European Regional Development Fund.

PyTerra is an early stage, Bristol-based business, developing an innovative blended finance platform based on blockchain for local low carbon projects such as affordable housing. A small team has been working since April 2020 to develop an approach which overcomes the finance chasm between smaller low carbon projects and the large amounts of capital in the private market. PyTerra was selected in September 2021 to join the incubator which is part of the Climate Innovation Platform operated by Energy Systems Catapult and funded by HSBC. PyTerra also has a background in the water and flood sector before pivoting to energy.

Green Bricks is an innovation venture dedicated to providing solutions through the circular economy for the construction market. They insert sustainability via quality materials like wall panels, floor products, urban furniture and ecohome, with quality and resistance certifications, made from revaluing plastic residues, to decrease the carbon-footprint. They have commercial operations in Chile, are recognized by the European Union, and are present at ExpoDubai 2020 as representatives of innovation in the Chilean pavilion. Their vision is to revalue the 7 types of plastics to create marketable products for construction, at the same time that they contribute to society by creating jobs.

Ambiente Livre is a startup formed by people engaged with environmental causes. Through knowledge and willpower, they create and apply various activities with the objective and purpose of making society more aware of environmental problems caused by the incorrect consumption and disposal of solid waste generated in recent decades. They develop organic waste recycling projects through the composting process, reducing food waste and consequently mineral extraction for the production of chemical fertilizers. They believe in the sustainable food cycle and Environmental Education to solve part of the social and environmental problems of cities.

Smart Green Station started with the rethinking of a better urban future. To accomplish the urban needs of civil society, mobility needs to be safe, efficient and sustainable. SGS is an early-stage start-up dedicated to the development of stations with multiple functionalities, offering connectivity, security and accessibility, all powered by green energy. Their key prototypes include: meeting points, recycling stations and electric bikes chargers. All of them include solar panels on the rooftop and integrated IoT to gather real-time environmental data. Hence, SGS aligns with the needs of Curitiba to reduce greenhouse gases and shift mobility towards cleaner solutions.

Allihop is Europe’s leading green business travel platform & corporate MaaS solution. Allihop enables businesses to easily access green mobility in all European countries and cities, reducing your travel emissions by 30-50%.

Agentes do Meio Ambiente is a social network committed to the sustainability of the urban environment, contributing to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda. It promotes citizens as local micro influencers that engage their community in environmental actions. AMA allows partnerships with municipalities and private initiatives to sponsor programs concerning environmental education, urban cleaning, recycling and reverse logistics, urban farms, composting, among others. Citizens are compensated financially while entrepreneurs and local governments may have real time, auditable data, and execute their budget more efficiently.

Vacuum Gravity Energy has created the world’s first mobile power plant that converts potential gravity energy into electricity, regardless of weather and location. It is a renewable energy source and is cheaper than similar solutions by more than 2 times. They cooperate with research institutes of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which are engaged in comic technologies.

Nudgd offers a SaaS Platform using behavioral science to establish climate-friendly habits such as switching from cars to active mobility and public transportation. The platform helps sustainability managers to automate behavior change within various sustainability challenges – such as energy, mobility, waste, litter, water, food, and health. Users of the platform can also find the most comprehensive library of implemented nudges with guides on how to implement the nudges, together with tools, resources, and a community for nudging fans. Nudgd – Sustainable Choices Made Easy.

At Marula Proteen they convert organic waste, like fruit and vegetable peels from open markets, and feed these to the larvae of their black soldier fly. They retrofit existing warehouse space in tropical climates into vertical Urban Insect Farms. They currently operate their first warehouse in Kampala, Uganda where they work together with the local municipality to convert their waste into value. At Proteen have developed a turn-key strategy to replicate their Kampala factory to other cities like Curitiba. Where there is organic waste, there is Proteen.

SunEmison is a recognized startup of Government of India (DIPP1183) for developing innovative clean energy solutions for MSME, Corporates, Real estate / skyscraper developers and smart cities for their construction glass and electricity requirement which they are focusing to serve customers in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Sub Saharan Africa and ASEAN Regions. SunEmison aims to provide the much needed energy security to world, ensuring self-sustained buildings by using own building structure, rapid deployment and reducing transmission & distribution losses.

Turning plastic waste into sustainable building materials for the construction industry in Uganda. Eco Brix are creating a recycling economy buying plastic waste from the community adding value to the waste to create green, quality and affordable construction materials.

Endelevo is a socio-environmental constructech that works for truly more sustainable constructions.  The startup’s projects propose the integration of solutions such as ventilated facades, vertical gardens and solar energy capture in order to ensure better energy efficiency and greater thermal comfort to buildings. Thus, the initiatives are focused on the building envelope, from the façade to the roof. They are looking for a partner to make their first success story, as a building that wants to achieve more energy efficiency in a sustainable way.

KasanaShare advances communities and livelihoods through green affordable shareable energy technologies.

UPC is a consortium of individual experts and their associated consulting firms who have been working together performing sustainable urban planning in East Africa since 2005. Large urban planning projects have been completed in Rwanda and Kenya, where applicable metrics for sustainable and resilient development in the East African context have been developed. Members include an architect, urban planner, economic advisor, environmental engineer, civil engineer, resilient infrastructure engineer, landscape architect, sustainability advisor and sustainability certifier. Also a part of the team they will be proposing are individuals who have developed relevant construction technologies.

Marula Proteen feed organic city waste to larvae of the black soldier fly, which process this into a high quality livestock feed and crop fertilizer. They retrofit existing warehouse space and convert this into urban insect farms. The advantage is that they are extremely close to waste sources, like open markets, restaurants and households. They have developed a vertical waste processing and insect rearing system that is tailored to Ugandan conditions. While the core of it is low-tech, they utilize mechanization and high-tech components such as sensor technology to optimize their production and to support, rather than replace, their workers.

IBS Foundation is a developer and general contractor with local manufacturing facilities for Zero Carbon Panels (straw panels), Interlocking Stabilized Soil Blocks (ISSB), lightweight steel structures, and FSC certified timber frames. IBSF brings together a multi-disciplinary team of professionals who share many years of on- the-ground experience in the East African and international construction and development sectors. Their team comprises production staff based at the IBSF manufacturing facility in Nwoya District, construction teams on building sites, and administrators, architects and engineers based in the Kampala office.

Stockholm Water Technology is a Scandinavian company that exists to develop and design clean and sustainable water solutions. The technology integrates hardware and software and brings smartness to the system while offering an exceptionally high water recovery and low energy use. In other words – efficient, membrane-free, smart and sustainable water purification designed and engineered in Stockholm.

Impulser is a water technology innovating company. Their patented watersaving technique is adaptable with existing water toilets and reduces the water utilization with more than 70% per flushing. This means that the average person saves around 9.000 liters of fresh water every year. For a family of four, watersaving of a full size garden pool in means of liters of water.

Sustainability Concepts is a Sweden-based nonprofit environmental association involved in addressing environmental issues, food safety, and rural development with the promotion of sustainable integration of the natural environment and its natural resources towards sustainable living.

CLC Global-USA (CLCG) is a Denver, CO USA-based for-profit, Triple Bottom Line, C Corporation, developing and marketing affordable and sustainable building products. The two Principals are Brad Wells President, and Randal Parsley Director of Product Development and Construction, who have been developing the proposed construction technology for decades. Consultants to CLCG include Steve Brooks of Urban Planning Constellation, Harry Jones, structural engineer with DCI Engineers, Adam Saffer with Gateway Development International, Rob Fogler Thousand Hills Venture Fund.

Reall are innovators and investors in climate-smart affordable homes in urban Africa and Asia. Affordable green homes are a doorway to 16 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals – transforming the lives of people on low incomes and responding to Covid-19. They do this because affordable homes drives inclusive growth, job creation, gender equality, urban resilience, climate mitigation and pathways to net-zero. They de-risk investments by demonstrating the viability of innovative ownership and rental models, including the $10K home and pioneering green solutions. They amplify impact through strategic policy change, disruptive financial innovation and sharing learning.

Smart Havens Africa is a Ugandan social enterprise founded to provide low-cost eco-friendly and sustainable affordable housing solutions for low income families in Africa who are unable to secure long-term affordable housing in the market. Building affordable homes is a key element of what they do, but they do a whole lot more! They put community needs at the heart of every project. They don’t just build houses, they build and empower communities. They operate a social business model that is built on job creation and social impact through homeownership, financial inclusion &community empowerment. Their mission is to provide a sustainable Affordable Pathway to Homeownership for low-income women in Africa.