UNLEASH

Winners of Energy

GOLD WINNER – Earthmark

Team 21: Spencer Jay Horne, T. Adil Chowdhury and Anders Brandt Bangsgaard

Solution: 

Product manufacturers will not use sustainable practices until demanded by consumers, but consumers have no easy way to make the best choices. The Earthmark app allows consumers to easily identify the most sustainable choices within product categories, spurring green competition between brands; so a minority of consumers can influence the most competitive sectors. Earthmark will be funded by product referrals to partner retailers – like Amazon, which gives 4% on successful sales.

SILVER WINNER –  Data Enrichment for Microgrid Site Assessment

Team 12: Anna Dorfi, Layusa Isa-Odidi, Tsakane Ngoepe, Isaac Sserwanga and
Emily Yox

Solution: Microgrids are critical to increase energy access in Tanzania by 2030. Currently,
microgrid companies spend between 40%-60% of project costs on site surveying
to determine viable locations for microgrids. Our site surveying solution uses high resolution imaging recorded by drones to develop and train a machine learning algorithm which can use satellite data to
recognize and map building structures such as houses and estimate economic activity in a village. This will reduce site surveying costs.

BRONZE WINNER – New sustainable and scalable biogas project model for rural communities

Team 17: Fatima Oyiza Ademoh, Prateek Jain; Nayana Primon, Gamuchirai
Mutezo, Kreshna Yuditya Rahmat and Marius Gillessen

Solution: Waste is an under-exploited resource. Waste-to-energy is a form of technology adopted to generate biogas for energy. Biogas projects can be made more sustainable and scalable by considering the following: (1) placing biogas facilities near a large-scale feedstock supply, e.g. large animal husbandry farms, (2) focus on small scale projects under 1MW and (3) developing a mile-stone based financial strategy using available financing structures such as Development Impact Bonds (DIB)