Ascend Elements is company focused on large-scale EV battery recycling, providing solutions that help recover valuable materials from used batteries and e-waste, which are repurposed into new battery components through their proprietary Hydro-to-Cathode® technology. This closed-loop system results in up to 90% lower GHG emissions compared to than traditional methods, by reducing batteries going to the landfill, reducing reliance on virgin materials, enabling a cleaner manufacturing process, and lowering the environmental impact of battery production-- essential for driving the broader energy transition.
- batteries
- circularity
- electric vehicles
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
Openbike is a project by Arquimaña, an architecture studio founded by Iñaki Albistur and Raquel Ares in 2011. They combine their passion for design, maker culture and mobile architecture (mobitechture) with the idea that technology can make us freer, more proactive and more creative. The result is their open-source bicycle and it's impact in promoting sustainable urban transportation. Openbike has been finalist in Arquia-Próxima 2018: Relevant Practices and part of the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 and the Cities exhibition of the Seoul Architecture and Urbanism Biennale SBAU2021 curated by Dominique Perrault.
- bicycle infrastructure
- mobility
- open source
- transportation
Cambrian Innovation is a water treatment solutions company that focuses on transforming wastewater into clean water and renewable energy, enabling clients in resource recovery, energy circularity, and environmental responsibility. It offers several wastewater treatment infrastructure options, which leverage biological processes and microbes to naturally break down organic pollutants in the wastewater, making it cleaner and safer for release and reuse. Its flagship offering, the EcoVolt system, utilizes bioelectrically-active microbes which do not only treat wastewater but also produce electricity, reducing reliance on conventional energy sources. All infrastructure is remotely connected and operated via its AVEVA Insight managed cloud solution, which gathers, stores, visualizes, and analyzes plant performance.
- as a service
- bioremediation
- circular economy
- material science
- microbes
- renewables
- water conservation
- water treatment
BackMarket’s digital marketplace for refurbished electronics helps coordinate stakeholders to close the loop on e-waste and open up access to reliable tech for all. The platform connects buyers and sellers of smartphones, laptops, TVs, wearables, gaming, e-mobility, and countless other devices from all the leading manufacturers. Promising “better than new,” it partners with certified refurbishers to repair electronics for resale, at a ~70% lower price than new. The digital platform helps coordinate discovery, customer service, payment, logistics, tracking, a 25+ point quality assurance verification of authenticity, functionality, security, data erasure, battery, testing, cleaning, and more; and manages partners to refurbish products. Refurbished devices reduce an average of ~90% raw material extraction, emissions, water use, and waste relative to new devices.
- circular economy
- digital platforms
- e-waste
- electronics
- mobile devices
- refurbishment
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
Hunome is a digital platform designed to help people understand complex issues by bring together diverse perspectives for multidisciplinary sensemaking. Its platform is designed to bridge fragmented information and siloed perspectives into clarity, and supports environments for people to spend the time in dialogue developing perspective, openness, accountability, and collective sensing around complex topics. It uses data to transparently show interactions, "thinking paths," and how decisions are informed. Hunome recognises 16 different "knowtypes." These encompass knowledge derived from experience, research, observation, intuition, aesthetics, and creative exploration. Exposure to diverse ideas can spark creativity and lead to new solutions for global challenges.
- city planning
- collective
- decision-making
- digital platforms
- market research
- sense-making
UrbanFootprint is a web-based software platform specifically designed for urban planning and climate resilience. It provides access to comprehensive data on land use, environmental factors, pollution, mobility patterns, buildings, economic patterns, and demographics across the United States. UrbanFootprint allows planners to analyze trends and create simulations of future development projects, analyzing potential impacts on areas like housing costs, energy use, and transportation. This helps urban planners, designers, and decision-makers make informed choices about city development, growth, sustainability and community.
- artificial intelligence
- data
- digital assets
- digital platforms
- satellite image analytics
- software as a service
- urban planning
KMX’s technology facilitates a separation and recovery of pure water, lithium and other rare earth minerals a from industrial brine and waste-streams at low temperature and pressure. By using its proprietary membrane distillation technology for mineral recovery and water separation, KMX's technology targets water scarcity and contamination and offers a new method of promoting clean water and wastewater treatment. In addition, separation of Lithium, which is a critical element for batteries used in electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies, as well as other rare earth minerals, through brine and waste is a far more sustainable approach than traditional lithium extraction methods which are energy-intensive and have negative community and environmental impacts.
- circular economy
- critical minerals
- industrial waste
- renewables
- water
Kumu is a digital social mapping tool for visualizing and understanding complex relationships by creating visualizations of data sets of people, systems and networks. Kumu allows users to create interactive maps that represent systems, stakeholders, networks, and nodes between relationships. Kumu's intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality provides a platform for users and groups to build and customize visually appealing maps that can be used to tackle real world problems. By visualizing data in a clear and concise manner, Kumu helps users identify patterns, connections, and potential areas for development.
- artificial intelligence
- data
- digital platforms
- social media / community
Wildchain is a mobile game that merges fun with real-world conservation efforts and climate action. Players act as a virtual conservationist, collecting and caring for digital representations of endangered animals. By playing mini-games and making in-game purchases, players contribute to real-world initiatives that protect these animals' habitats and support conservation efforts. Wildchain allows gamers to build their own wildlife sanctuary and learn about endangered species, all while contributing to preserving biodiversity and habitat restoration. Wildchain utilizes blockchain to create unique digital collectibles representing the adopted animals.
- animal tech
- biodiversity
- blockchain
- conservation
- digital assets
- gaming
- play-to-impact
Space4Good is a team of impact-driven data scientists, remote sensing & GIS experts, software developers, environmental and urban planners using their unique skills and experience collectively for social and environmental impact. They offer expertise in remote sensing, data analysis, geospatial analytics, capacity building, and developing bespoke solutions. It began in the European Space Agency (ESA) Business Incubation Center in The Netherlands, Space4Good B.V. in 2017 and became a certified Benefit Corporation (B.Corp). Now based in The Hague, the city of Peace and Justice, they work around the world and collaborate with NGOs, universities, public authorities, multinationals and other social enterprises to change the status quo for a better planet and society. Through their core values of Collaboration, Impact, and Passion, Space For Good delivers solutions for clients and partners that solves problems, enhances livelihoods, ensures peace & justice, and protects the environment.
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
- remote sensing
- social media / community
