Ahead of Africa Climate Week, ACIC announces the winners of this year's competition, strengthening the continent's reputation as a hotbed of youth innovation. Designed to empower and support young African changemakers to tackle the climate crisis through entrepreneurship and innovation, the competition will provide financial backing, a tailor-made curriculum, and peer-to-peer mentorship, to the winning project teams, to scale and accelerate their project solutions.
 

The pitch event that determined the winners provided an inspiring end to the Africa Youth Climate Assembly, the official Regional Conference of Youth for Africa, and a vital component of the African Climate Summit. Taking place from 1st-3rd September 2023, in Nairobi, Kenya, the Assembly aims to address critical climate challenges with a focus on youth-led solutions.
 

The ACIC is a beacon of innovation and creativity that has captured the imagination of young Africans, determined to drive positive environmental and social impact within their communities and across the continent. Created with the aim of nurturing and accelerating innovative solutions to sustainability challenges, the competition rallied the passion and ingenuity of visionary youth. 
 

The challenge successfully provided a platform for young African visionaries to channel their ideas into tangible solutions.  Members of this year's finalists came from Ghana, Nigeria, Madagascar, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, celebrating the diversity across the continent, providing African solutions to global challenges, and underscoring the dynamic potential of African youth in shaping the continent's response to the climate crisis.

The winners this year are: 

• First Prize: Asili Kwanza, Uganda – USD10,000 

A social enterprise that provides affordable and sustainable household cooking solutions. The main products offered by the enterprise are briquettes and improved cookstoves tested and validated for excellent fuel efficiency, reducing cooking costs and minimizing aggregate demand for wood fuel. 

• Second Prize: Low Altitude Maglev, Ghana – USD8,000 

Direct air capture (DAC) technology which captures CO? directly from the air, storing it in the ground thereby reducing CO? concentration. The system also generates clean energy from wind power. 

• Third Prize: Algas Company, Madagascar – USD5,000 

Researched-based cultivation of seaweed for human consumption known as Ulva Reticulata to the fight against food insecurity and poverty. This project aims to promote female entrepreneurship and improve the income of fishermen or households vulnerable to climate change. 

• Fourth Prize: Theseus Development, Ghana – USD4,000 

Designing and developing geopolymer precast components for construction. The Geopolymer technology creates sustainable and low-energy consumption buildings as buildings account for 40% of global energy usage. 
 

• Fifth Prize: Tyndall Credits, Nigeria – USD3,000 

IT and digital infrastructure to monitor carbon footprints and their offsets, predict carbon emissions, manage carbon credits, and analyze potential carbon credit investments for nature-based projects mitigating climate change. 

More details on finalists

Although Africa accounts for one-fifth of the global population, the region currently attracts only 3% of global energy investment. By 2030, this needs to double.' (https://www.iea.org/events/financing-clean-energy-in-africa). With this in mind, ACIC is supporting ideas through training and financing to nurture a generation of leaders who will make a lasting impact on our environment 

ACIC celebrates innovation and offers resources, mentorship, and recognition of the most outstanding ideas.   As the world looks to the youth for innovative solutions, this event is set to continue playing a pivotal role in unlocking the transformative potential of the next generation of African leaders.