Plastic Bank is a for-profit social enterprise whose model is designed to reduce plastic pollution and alleviate poverty in developing countries. It does this by establishing plastic collection centers where communities exchange plastic waste as currency for income and life-improving benefits such as income, zero-interest loans, education, or other social benefits. Exchanges are recorded through their proprietary blockchain-secured platform, enabling traceable collection, secured income, and verified reporting. The collected material is processed into Social Plastic® feedstock for reuse in products and packaging. The company re-invests the majority of its profits into collection benefits, development and maintenance of recycling infrastructure, and technology development for material traceability for a greater social, environmental, and economic impact.
- blockchain
- community
- credits
- digital platforms
- digital wallets
- fintech
- plastics
- pollution
Sway is a cleantech startup scaling seaweed-based, rapidly compostable replacements for plastic, beginning with flexible packaging. Sway's patented products match the vital performance attributes of conventional plastics and are designed to plug into existing infrastructure, enabling scale and competitive pricing. Unlike plastic, Sway's materials are made from an abundant, regenerative resource and decompose into healthy soil after use.
- agricultural tech
- bioplastics
- bioremediation
- nature tech
- plastics
Tent Partnership for Refugees, or Tent.org, is a global network of over 400 major companies working together to integrate refugees into new communities. Businesses from various sectors like consumer goods, hospitality, and technology join Tent.org to hire refugees, support refugee entrepreneurs, and provide essential services through job prep & employment. Their goal is to empower refugees economically and create a more welcoming and inclusive world for those displaced by war or persecution.
- digital platforms
- human resources
- marketplaces
- social media / community
Gitcoin is a crowdfunding and collaboration platform that coordinates stakeholders to fund and innovate open source and digital public goods. Through blockchain-enabled infrastructure, it empowers communities and entrepreneurs to fund digital tooling for the commons. The platform also enables quadratic funding, a term for using unique mathematical formula that rewards funds based on the number of people who have donated, not only donation size. In effect, this prioritizes projects with a broad appeal from many funding parties over those with similar liquidity but reliant on fewer large donors. Gitcoin’s platform coordinates stakeholders across the ecosystem to submit ideas, vote on ideas, contribute funds, tokenize capital, collaborate on projects, allocate those funds digitally.
- blockchain
- crowdfunding
- digital platforms
- digital public infrastructure
- open source
- regenerative finance
- web3
DepolarizingGPT is a political AI chatbot that gives three answers to every prompt: one from a left-wing perspective, one from a right-wing perspective, and a third answer from a depolarizing or "integrating" perspective. DepolarizingGPT was created by data scientist David Rozado and political philosopher Steve McIntosh. DepolarizingGPT's left-wing responses have been fine-tuned with content from left-leaning publications and writers, while its right-wing responses have been fine-tuned with content from publications and writers. The model's depolarizing responses have been fine-tuned with content from the Institute for Cultural Evolution think tank, from McIntosh's inclusive political philosophy. The model's depolarizing responses are designed to transcend centrism and reach a "higher ground" balance by exposing users to multiple views across the political spectrum.
- civic engagement
- decision-making
- politics
- sensemaking
LemonGRAFT is a peer-to-peer marketplace that connects homegrown food growers with people who want to buy it and hosts who steward its preparation and pick-up. The platform enables a local supply chain to make it easy for people to buy fresh, local food directly from the people who grow it. The platform helps decentralize the food supply, foster community connections, and increase local food sovereignty providing tools for growers to improve biodiversity and source nutrient-dense produce, seeds, compost, as well as source animal products from local certified producers.
- digital platforms
- food sovereignty
- food tech
- local
SunHydrogen is a clean energy company in the development stages of creating a new technology to produce clean hydrogen fuel using sunlight and water. SunHydrogen utilizes nanoparticles to mimic the process of photosynthesis, splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The process itself is powered by sunlight, making it a truly renewable energy source. Through this process, the company aims to create a highly efficient and cost-effective method for hydrogen production, which could significantly impact the emerging hydrogen economy, supplying clean fuel for vehicles, data centers, and countless other applications.
- biotech
- computational biology & chemistry
- energy storage optimization
Matriark Foods is a social impact business that upcycles farm surplus and fresh-cut remnants into healthy, low sodium vegetable products for schools, hospitals, food banks and other foodservices. Matriark works with farmers and aggregators to make use of the vegetables that would otherwise go to waste, to instead provide nutritious food for people and reduce the environmental harms of food waste. They are using technology to manage their supply chains, inventory, sustainability tracking, and data analysis to underpin auditability of Upcycle Certified products.
- certifications
- circular economy
- food waste
- foodtech
- supply chain traceability
Liquidonate is a digital platform which helps retailers sustainably manage excess inventory and facilitates donations of unsold products to nonprofits, schools, or upcyclers. The platform offers retailers matching algorithms based on inventory and customer return information, a personalized dashboard and API integration into their existing systems, tax reciept automation, negotiated shipping rates, as well as a dedicated customer support agent. By facilitating the donation of excess inventory, Liquidonate’s approach benefits both retailers, who save on disposal costs and reduce environmental harms, and non-profit recipients, who gain access to valuable resources for their programs and beneficiaries.
- charities
- circular economy
- donations
- inventory management
- liquidation
- nonprofits
ReFi DAO's mission is to develop strategic services and public goods for the Regenerative Finance (ReFi) ecosystem. Central to its work is incubating and supporting the development of ReFi Local Nodes across all major regions in the world. These local communities are champion ReFi solutions on the ground and enact a local network for the regenerative economy. This includes movement-wide sense-making, education, opportunity development, fundraising support, onboarding and empowerment through a blend of online platforms, multimedia, and community coordination.
- blockchain
- crypto/ complementary currencies
- daos
- digital assets
- digital ledgers
- fintech
- governance platforms
- social media / community
ISeeChange empowers communities to tackle climate change impacts by integrating public input into infrastructure design and response management. Headquartered on America's Gulf Coast, ISeeChange prioritizes community, connection, integrity, equity, and insight, driving citizen science-based solutions. Residents contribute real-time observations of climate events like flooding and heat waves, which ISeeChange transforms into actionable insights using AI and sensor data. These insights enable cities, engineers, and utilities to prioritize infrastructure investments and design resilient solutions.
- artificial intelligence
- citizen science
- cloud
- data
- digital platforms
- edge computing
- marketplaces
- nature tech
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit environmental engineering organization dedicated to developing and implementing technologies to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and rivers. For over ten years, The Ocean Cleanup has been researching, extracting, and monitoring plastic pollution in oceans and rivers globally – with millions of kilograms removed to date. Its technologies supporting ocean cleanup act as large-scale floating barriers, designed to concentrate plastic debris within a specific area for collection. They utilize ocean currents and wind to move through the water, gathering plastic along their path. The systems are also equipped with solar panels and wind turbines to power their operations. It also deploys floating barriers in rivers to intercenpt and prevent plastic from entering the oceans. The Ocean Cleanup also closely monitors and analyzes impacts, provides a dashboard and data insights, and is engaged in research on improving envrionmental impact analyses. The Ocean Cleanup aims to tackle plastic pollution in order to protect and restore marine and riverine environments and the wildlife they contain – as well as benefit the human communities living alongside these areas, and reliant on these ecosystems for their livelihoods.
- bioremediation
- conservation
- data
- nature tech
- oceans
- rivers