More than $2 million awarded to Israeli Climate-Tech researchers and startups at the Climate Solutions Festival

TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Climate Solutions Prize, a joint initiative by JNF Canada, Start-Up Nation Central, and KKL-JNF, is an annual initiative to incentivize climate innovation, granting over $2 million in prizes to researchers and startups that offer solutions to the global climate crisis. The initiative culminated in last week's Climate Solutions Prize Festival, a gathering of government, business, and non-profit organizations dedicated to driving innovation in the climate-tech ecosystem.

Hundreds of guests arrived at the festival, held in the Hulda Forest in central Israel, and took part in the large-scale global summit and startup expo.

The Climate Solutions Prize, founded earlier this year, is the most comprehensive initiative established to support research and innovation addressing the climate change crisis. The initiative operates in two distinct tracks. One is the Breakthrough Research Prize, which offers a grant for Israeli scientists and researchers. The other is the Startup Track, which involves a series of challenges that offer investment, cash prizes, and exposure to Israeli tech companies. Each Startup Challenge is led by different industry leaders and philanthropic partners, such as Capital Nature, The Temasek Foundation, ESIL, Kornit Digital, SolarEdge, and Merck.

The winners in the Research Track are:

• Prof. Avner Rothschild of the Technion
  
  Topic - Decoupled water electrolysis for green hydrogen production at scale
  
  Project description - Green hydrogen (as energy source) produced by water decomposition using electrolysis. Transformative water electrolysis process with high efficiency and no membranes.

• Prof. Itzhak Mizrahi of Ben Gurion University
  
  Topic - Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change by rational design of ruminants' microbiome.
  
  Project description - Reduce methane emissions and increase feed efficiency of ruminates by identifying microbial components that, in concert, enable and support the life of the host and reduce animal methane emissions to the atmosphere.

• Prof. Malachi Noked of Bar Ilan Bar Ilan
  
  Topic - Development of Sodium Ion batteries
  
  Project description - Developing active materials for Sodium ion batteries for creating fuel cells as a more environmentally friendly energy storage system -.

The winner in the Startup track and challenges are:

• The winner in the Capital Nature Investment track (looking for early-stage startups in sustainable energy, sustainable mobility, green construction-tech and circularity) is Copprint, which replaces the highly polluting chemical processes for manufacturing electronic circuit boards and antennas with simple printing of copper inks.
• The winner of the Temasek Foundation Livability Innovations Challenge (promoting sustainable living in southeast Asia) is Marine Edge, which reduces fuel consumption for ships, improves propulsive efficiency, and minimizes carbon emissions for marine transportation.
• The winner of the Kornit Sustainable Fashion Tech Revolutionary Challenge (promoting sustainability in the textile industry) is  Styletech.ai, which revolutionizes visual marketing through AI, reducing the carbon footprint of the fashion industry. Its technology eliminates shooting days, decreases return rates and encourages brands to produce by demand.
• The winner in the Merck Greener Materials Challenge (looking for green chemistry, sustainable materials, energy & wastewater and supply chain efficiency solutions) is  Smart Resilin which produces resilin, a bio-based alternative  to pollutant materials.
• The winner in the SolarEdge EnergyTech Challenge (looking for renewable energy systems, home and EV energy management, and next generation storage solutions) is Red Solar Flower, which promotes carbon footprint reduction and improved food security by rapid gigawatt-scale solar panels deployment over agricultural areas.
• The winner in the SustainIL Challenge for Early-Stage Rising Stars Challenge (looking for an early-stage solution) is SolOr, which creates a solar paint for buildings skin, that allows the possibility to combine electricity generation with other functions of the building materials.
• The winner in the SustainIL Grand Pivot Challenge (looking for a mature startup that is adapting its existing technology to meet new climate-related applications) is Seevix Material Sciences, which produces synthetic spider silk fibers that are identical in their characteristics to the ones found in nature and are more sustainable and biodegradable.

"I could not be more excited to see this dream come to fruition of supercharging the ingenuity of Israel, the Start-up Nation, to help solve the climate crisis". said Jeff Hart, Executive Chair of the Climate Solutions Prize." I am so thankful to everyone involved for helping with this critical initiative for our future generations".

Amnon Ben Ami, CEO of KKL - JNF: "KKL - JNF sees the development of knowledge and technology as an important and necessary basis for the fight against the climate crisis. The award is given after professional thinking and subsequently for exceptional cooperation for an important cause. The grants distributed to the winners will allow Israeli start-ups to develop significant technologies for all of us and there is no doubt that Israel will continue to lead in the field. KKL-JNF, as the largest green organization in Israel, puts the treatment of the climate crisis as a flag and we operate in Israel and help organizations and countries around the world to become greener."

"Israel is currently home to more than 700 technology companies that are already developing solutions for addressing climate challenges, including sustainable food systems, circular economy, clean energy, efficiency and storage, sustainable mobility, sustainable manufacturing, nature protection, and many more" said Start-Up Nation Central CEO,
 Avi Hasson. "As a recognized leader in developing advanced solutions to global challenges, Israel is extremely well-positioned to take a central role in battling climate change and bring solutions to the biggest shared challenge of our times."

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SOURCE Start-Up Nation Central (SNC)