Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition - Kenya

Making the world clean and green, one idea at a time.

The Cleantech Open Global Ideas competition is a hunt for the most promising clean technology ideas anywhere in the world. One national winner from each country will then compete, in November, against the winners from other countries at the global finals in California.

This is your chance to join a major national project that can really make a dif­ference.

The Cleantech Open is more than just a fun competition, more than just cool technology, more than just smart entrepreneurship.

Together, we’ll find, fund and foster the most promising cleantech ideas in the world - ideas that address today’s most challenging economic, environmental and energy challenges.

We’re looking for anything from revolutionary ways to generate clean energy, to better ways to filter water, to ideas about how government policies on climate change can foster new businesses.

And we’re not just looking for good ideas - we’re looking for concepts and technologies that can become great businesses that will reward entrepreneurship and bolster your country’s economy.

Signing up for the Ideas Competition

Contestants register through this easy, three-step process at:

www.cleantechopen.com/ideas/enter

Ideas Competition Categories

Each idea needs to fit into one of these six categories:

1. Air Water & Waste - Ways to cut pollution

Entries focus on improving resource availability, conservation and pollution control. Air covers services, instruments and equipment related to emission control, treatment or reduction technolo­gies. Also included are creative approaches to greenhouse gas reduction, such as carbon conver­sion and sequestration. Water covers treatment, storage, monitoring, recycling and conservation technologies. Waste covers waste management equipment; sorting; resource recovery processes; pollution prevention, control and treatment technology; and, waste reduction through innovative recycling processes and the creation of new recyclable materials such as bio-based plastics.

Examples:

• Storm-water, flood control and rainwater harvesting

• Smart irrigation

• Water filtration and disinfection

• Advanced filters and filtration (air or water)

• Carbon and GHG monitoring and control

• Carbon capture sequestration and storage

• Waste cleanup and remediation

2. Energy Efficiency - More efficient methods and devices

Entries include technologies that can significantly reduce wasted energy and help lessen the need for additional power plants.

Examples:

• Industrial process improvements

• Natural gas monitoring and control (industrial or residential)

• LED lighting

• Advanced lighting controls

• HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) solutions

• Natural gas controls

• Smart/User-friendly energy management systems

3. Renewable Energy - Replacements for fossil fuels

This category includes innovations that use, enable and accelerate the migration to renewable energy. Renewables encompass technologies that use waste streams to directly produce energy.

Examples:

• Thin film solar manufacture

• Concentrating solar photovoltaic

• Bio-based fuels

• Hydropower

• Advanced fluid-flow designs

• Wind power technologies

4. Green Building - New kinds of buildings or materials

Reducing the environmental impact of building construction or operation through improved de­sign or construction practices, new or innovative use of building materials and new hardware or software applications is the goal of this category. Technologies are applied directly to the built environment.

Examples:

• Insulation materials

• Cement alternatives

• Indoor air filtration systems

• Disaster relief and modular housing

• Low VOC carpeting and flooring

• Water saving toilets, showers and plumbing

• Recycled materials for use in building material

5. Smart Power, Green Grid, Energy Storage - Better ways of carrying/storing electricity

This category encourages creating links between information technologies and electricity delivery that give industrial, commercial and residential consumers greater control over when and how their energy is delivered and used. It includes improvements in all forms of energy storage, from battery technology for consumer-scale products to chemical, metal, biological or other approaches to storage of utility-scale energy, as well as methods for controlling or in­creasing the efficiency of energy storage or energy transmission.

Examples:

• Wireless metering and use of real-time pricing information

• Network architecture for power management

• Hydrogen storage

• Battery form factor improvements

• Advanced fuel cell membranes

• Power storage

• Transmission efficiency

6. Transportation - Greener cars, buses, trucks or planes

This category encompasses transportation and mobile technology applications that improve fuel efficiency, reduce air pollution, reduce oil consumption or reduce vehicle travel (not limited to automobiles). Technologies are applied directly to transportation systems or vehicles.

Examples:

• Fleet and route management systems

• Logistics management

• Carpooling solutions

• All electric vehicles

• Flex fuel engines and applications

• Drivetrain conversion kits

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is behind the Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition?

A: The competition is organized by the Cleantech Open (www.cleantechopen.com). Through its annual  cleantech Business Competition and mentorship program (the world’s largest), the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition since 2006, and helped its alumni raise over $150M and create thousands of green-collar jobs.

Q: What is the mission of the Cleantech Open?

A: The mission of the Cleantech Open is to find, fund and foster find, fund, and foster companies with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges.

Through this mission, the Cleantech Open encourages the development of clean technology companies that foster a healthy, natural environment - companies that provide environmental benefits in the areas of renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and resource protection and conservation. The Ideas Competition is the first step to help entrepreneurs build a successful cleantech business.

Q: Who can enter the competition?

A: Anyone looking to turn their clean technology idea into a thriving business can apply. Entrants can  be sole proprietors, teams or early-stage companies. To be eligible, your entity must have received less than $500,000US in external private financing. Grant funding and any money from friends and family are excluded from this $500,000 limit.

Q: What is Sustainability?

A: Sustainability is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Source: Brundtland Commission, 1987).

Cleantech Open’s Sustainability Program strives to highlight the relevance of and promote the  philosophy of sustainability throughout everything Cleantech Open does. We ask competitors to have a positive impact on the environment and the broader community, and to make this part of every phase of development - not just for the end-use application. Your idea should deliver products or services that have a net positive environmental impact.

Q: How many prizes are there and what is included?

A: There is one national winner for each country who will receive press recognition for their award and go on to compete at the global pitch competition in San Francisco on November 17.

The global winner will receive at least $100,000US worth of startup services and have access to seasoned advisors in the essential areas that will help ensure their ideas can be translated into a business. The Cleantech Open advisor community includes specialists in business plan development, intellectual property protection, marketing, PR, sustainability and fundraising. Starting with a plan to leverage their Global Cleantech Open award, the advisor team will develop a plan specific to the global winner’s needs.

Q: What does it cost to enter the competition?

A: It costs nothing to enter the Global Cleantech Open. All incidental costs, such as producing a video or traveling to the Awards Gala, are however the responsibility of each contestant.

Q: What is cleantech?

A: Cleantech has been described by Clean Edge, a clean technology research firm, as “a diverse range of products, services, and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources, dramatically reduce the use of natural resources, and cut or eliminate emissions and wastes.” The terms “cleantech” and “green tech” are often used interchangably to describe products, services and practices that are environmentally friendly.

About the Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (YIPE)

The Youth Interactive Portal for Enterprise (www.yipekenya.org) is an online service providing business skills training, information on how to access finance, business ideas & opportunities and advice on how to register a business to Kenyan youth entrepreneurs.

The portal is the first of its kind in East Africa specifically targeting the youth with free information and resources aimed at ensuring business sustainability. On a wider scale, the portal also provides valuable information to students, corporates, financial institutions, NGOs, government policy makers as well as development agencies seeking to promote economic empowerment. For more information, visit www.yipekenya.org, and follow @yipeorg on Twitter.

About Cleantech Open

The Cleantech Open (www.cleantechopen.com) finds, funds, and fosters entrepreneurs with ideas, technologies, and products that address today’s most urgent energy, climate and economic challenges. Through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition, ideas competition and entrepreneurial devel­opment programs, the Cleantech Open has helped hundreds of clean technology startups bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition since 2006, and helped its alumni raise over $150m and create thou­sands of green-collar jobs.

About Global Entrepreneurship Week

With the goal to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, Global  Entrepreneurship Week will encourage youth to think big, turn their ideas into reality, and make their mark. From November 15-21, 2010, millions of young people around the world will join a growing  movement to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. Tens of thousands of activi­ties are being planned in dozens of countries. Global Entrepreneurship Week is founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Enterprise UK. For more information, visit www.unleashingideas.org, and follow @unleashingideas on Twitter.

Africa Progress Report calls on African leaders to turn “scramble for Africa” into results

Johannesburg – 25 May 2010: The Africa Progress Panel (APP) has called for a more assertive approach from African leaders to translate the continent’s “immense resources” into social benefits for its people. The report warned that “Africans beyond elite circles are not benefiting sufficiently” while at the same time there was great scope to improve Africa’s partnerships with the Global South.

Kofi Annan, Chair of the Panel and fellow Panel members Linah Mohohlo, Peter Eigen and Olusegun Obasanjo  presented the Africa Progress Report on Africa Day – five years since the establishment of the Panel and 10 years since world leaders signed up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report takes stock of Africa’s progress since 2005 and assesses future opportunities for the continent.

“This landmark report argues that Africa’s future is in its own hands, but that success in managing its own affairs depends on supportive global policies and agreements,” Annan said. “There is no lack of resources, no deficiency of knowledge and no shortage of plans. Africa’s progress rests above all else on the mobilisation of political will, both on the continent and internationally.”

The panel has called on the continent’s finance ministers, who are meeting in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire for the Annual African Development Bank summit, to “climate proof” the continent’s economic growth and development. “Climate change will increase the cost of MDG attainment, whether in food production, health, water, energy, infrastructure and other areas; it will have disproportionate effects on women and the poor,” the Panel said. “As a result, it cannot be treated as a stand-alone issue; climate-proofed development plans can provide the basis for disaster risk reduction and adaptation strategies as well as help identify investment opportunities for low carbon and job generating growth.”

Focusing on Africa’s emergence as a “new economic frontier”, the Report notes that economic engagement with the Global South - China, the Far and Middle East, South Asia and Latin America - “is already having a substantial development impact on Africa”.  However, the report asserts that “Africans beyond elite circles are not benefiting sufficiently” while at the same time “there is great scope to improve Africa’s partnerships with the Global South”.  The report also notes that “African leaders... need to realize that the benefits of increasing economic ties are not automatic, but only accrue to those that take adequate and pro-active steps to exploit them through targeted policies.”

In particular, the report calls for:

• Transparency throughout the entire resource system, from how contracts are awarded and monitored, to how taxes and royalties are collected, to how investment choices are made and executed.
• Policies that ensure that the revenues from the continent’s natural wealth reach everyone. This requires major policy shifts and significant investments of resources in institutions, human capacities, women, health, education and infrastructure.

Stating that “Africa’s development and the welfare of its people depend above all upon the political commitment and capacity of its leaders”, the Panel also urges African policymakers to:

1)     Empower women by enforcing existing conventions, laws and policies and link their efforts with effective implementation strategies including reliable reporting mechanisms 

2)     Climate proof development, not least through integrating adaptation to climate change into growth and development strategies, accelerating regional integration, harnessing the potential of information technology and anticipating demographic shifts  

The Panel also identifies three priority areas for action for Africa’s partners, recording that Africa’s leaders “need an international environment that is fair and supportive of their efforts.” The report calls for international policymakers to:

1)   Provide a level playing field, addressing the fact that “the continent is starkly underrepresented in virtually all international fora” and that “bloated subsidy regimes and unfair trade rules” leave African countries “heavily disadvantaged.”

2)  Increase policy coherence for development, “recognising the overall impact that countries’ domestic and international policy mix has on the continent and seek to minimize their negative effects.”

3)  Fulfil promises on resources and assistance, and “Africa’s partners to recommit to the consensus on the continent’s development and fulfil the many promises on financial support and assistance they have made over the last decade”.

Focusing on the approximately $100billion of financial assistance in annual expenditure from Africa’s partners required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the presence of anticipated climate change, the report records that “much of this could actually be met if partners were to fulfil the pledges they made over the last couple of years and realize the financing ambitions outlined in the Copenhagen Accord.” It notes that “the mechanisms to collect, administer, and disburse these funds are already in place.”

Looking back on Africa’s progress over the last five years, the report describes it as “a truly mixed picture.” It states that “remarkable progress has been achieved in many fields, but... a number of set-backs, chronic problems and the effects of the global economic crisis and climate change combine to threaten the gains made since 2005.”

The Africa Progress Report highlights that the central challenge for Africa’s leaders is to inspire processes and build practical capacities, both nationally and regionally, to ensure that assets are translated into social benefits and that their people are able to access opportunities that can transform their lives, countries, and continent. 

ABOUT THE AFRICA PROGRESS PANEL:

The Africa Progress Panel brings together a unique group of leaders under the chairmanship of Kofi Annan. The Panel monitors and promotes mutual accountability and shared responsibility for progress in Africa. Its three focus areas are economic and political governance; finance for sustainable development, including ODA; and MDG achievement – notably in light of climate change. The work of the Panel aims to track progress and draw attention to critical issues and opportunities for progress in Africa.

The Africa Progress Panel is comprised of:

§         Kofi Annan (chair of the Africa Progress Panel, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Laureate)

§         Tony Blair (founder, Africa Governance Initiative and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)

§         Michel Camdessus (former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund)

§         Peter Eigen (founder and Chair of the Advisory Council, Transparency International and Chairman of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative)

§         Bob Geldof (musician, businessman, founder and Chair of Band Aid, Live Aid and Live8, Co-founder of DATA and ONE)

§         Graça Machel (President of the Foundation for Community Development and founder of New Faces New Voices)

§         Linah Kelebogile Mohohlo (Governor, Bank of Botswana)

§         Olusegun Obasanjo (Envoy of the Secretary-General on the Great Lakes region and  former President of Nigeria)

§         Robert Rubin (Co-Chairman of the Board, Council on Foreign Relations and former Secretary of the United States Treasury)

§         Tidjane Thiam (Chief Executive Officer, Prudential Plc.)

§         Muhammad Yunus (economist, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Laureate)

African youth declare that governments must foster entrepreneurship to eradicate poverty

The 1st World Youth Meeting at Bari, Italy ended yesterday where African delegates released a Declaration that recognised the challenges African youth face including unemployment, corruption,  poverty, lack of access to meaningful education, climate change effects, and civil wars among others.

The Declaration further demanded that African youth be included in decision making and that poverty eradication approaches focus on entrepreneurship development, specifically through the creation of youth funds.

Read the Declaration here

Statement from Professor Wangari Maathai on the Mau Forest Complex in Kenya

Press release, December 2, 2009

Nations of the world are preparing to meet at Copenhagen for the latest round of negotiations to agree on a global treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It is expected that reafforestation, and reduced deforestation and forest degradation, will be key solutions to the climate challenge.

It is extremely important, therefore, for Kenya to be seen to support protection and conservation of forests, including the Mau, which at 400,000 hectares is the largest forest complex in East Africa. Twenty-five percent of the Mau has already been destroyed through human settlements, cultivation of crops and monocultures, and grazing of livestock. Along with the other four water towers, the complex supports the livelihoods of more than 70% of the people who live around them. Some rivers from the Mau complex flow into trans-boundary lakes, including Turkana and Natron, the breeding grounds for flamingoes, and Victoria, the source of the Nile.

The value of the Mau complex is enormous, with respect to the various sectors it supports. It plays a significant role in regulating rainfall patterns and the climate, and in making possible agriculture, power generation and tourism. Experts have already warned that the continued destruction of the Mau forest will cause catastrophic environmental damage, resulting in massive food crises and compromising the livelihoods of millions of Kenyans, and the possible collapse of the tourism industry. 

While the Kenyan government has a responsibility to ensure that all Kenyans are taken care of, it is also true that no settlements should have been allowed in the Mau forest in the first place. While the government was wrong to encourage these settlements, it cannot hold millions of Kenyans hostage in an effort to justify its own mistakes or appease people it misled. Therefore, the Hon. Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the government are right in demanding that all human settlements in the Mau and other forests cease.

While neither the PM nor the government has all the solutions for the Mau complex, and indeed for all the internally displaced people in the country. Therefore, what the government needs is support both from within and without in order to meet the challenge. Politicians are being hypocritical when they pretend that all displaced Kenyans are not equally in need. National leadership should be seen to care about all Kenyans, and not be driven by self-interest. But when it focuses on only certain communities or regions, it ceases to be national leadership and instead becomes tribal leadership. 

With that kind of ethnically-driven leadership, Kenya is doomed. Indeed, it is that kind of leadership that led us to settle people in gazetted forests in the past, allowed leaders to allocate themselves public goods, or incited Kenyans to kill each other after the 2007 election. Kenyans should be commending the Prime Minister for providing the right kind of leadership, and should be encouraging him to move ahead with the ongoing efforts of saving the Mau and all our forests—for the sake of present and future generations.