GREEN CHALLENGE- A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY FOR GREEN ENTREPRENURIAL TALENT

I am writing to bring your attention to a fantastic opportunity for innovative thinkers and entrepreneurs at your University. The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is celebrating its 5th anniversary by offering a £440,000 (€500,000) as a top prize for a sustainable and eco-friendly idea or concept, which has a commercial application, in order to help in the fight against climate change. In addition to the top prize, up to two runners up will receive £175,000 (€200,000) to help fund their respective projects as well.

The Green Challenge is all about how one great idea can make a tremendous difference, and is a worldwide competition providing financial support and expert coaching to help winners bring their products to market. Entries that reduce CO2 emissions and score highly on design, user-friendliness and quality have a shot at the prize.

This year’s competition has an application deadline of 29th July 2011. We have already received a tremendous international response to the Green Challenge in a short period of time, however we are keen to see a far greater number of submissions from the UK. We want to use this opportunity to encourage students and academic staff at your institution to put their ideas forward for consideration.

Entrants are asked to submit detailed business plans of their projects to an expert preliminary jury who assess the entries’ viability and select five to seven finalists after the competition deadline. The finalists will present their ideas before an international jury of experts and an audience of invited guests on 14th and 15th September at the multimedia conference PICNIC ’11 in Amsterdam. After the presentations and private interviews with the finalists, the jury will choose the winner and the runners-up.

The criteria for participating in the Green Challenge are as follows. Applicants’ ideas should:

·         have the potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an amount you can roughly estimate;
·         be developed enough to execute;
·         be realisable as a usable product or service within the next two years;
·         be categorized in one of these sectors: Lifestyle, ICT, Design, Energy or Mobility.

Past winners have enjoyed success with innovative products, thanks in large part to the publicity and contacts generated through the Postcode Lottery’s Green Challenge. Last year American Scot Frank won for his low-priced, multi-purpose, portable solar collector SolSource. In 2009, Dean Gregory from the UK took the prize with the Power Collective’s near-invisible rooftop wind turbines. In 2008, Eben Bayer of the United States won for his natural insulation material Greensulate. At the first Challenge in 2007, Dutchman Igor Kluin won for his innovative Qbox that enables decentralised energy production.

The standard of submissions over the past 5 years has been tremendous and I am excited to see what surprises this year has to offer as well. For more information and to submit an application to the Green Challenge, why not check out our website @ www.greenchallenge.info. In addition, you will see that I have included some further background information and promotional materials regarding the Challenge that I hope you will share with friends, colleagues and students at your institution.

I hope this is of interest to you and I look forward to receiving submissions from your institution before the July deadline. If you do have any specific questions that I may be able to assist with please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Lisa Imlach, Head of Communications, on lisa@postcodelottery.com or 0131 554 8794.

Kind regards,

Jo Bucci
Managing Director
People’s Postcode Lottery