Climate Action Challenge winners

Tomorrow is an exciting day for the winners of last year’s Climate Action Challenge! After months of designing inspirational and practical ways to fight climate change and help people cope with its effects, the winning teams will finally get a chance to present their prototypes and business plans to potential investors at this year’s What Design Can Do conference.

The Climate Action Challenge is a collaboration between the IKEA Foundation, Amsterdam-based design platform What Design Can Do and the Autodesk Foundation. It launched on Earth Day 2017 and challenged designers and creative thinkers to submit daring, innovative solutions that could make positive contributions to the way we deal with the consequences of climate change. Teams came up with design solutions to help children and families living in communities vulnerable to a changing climate—focusing on their food, water, housing, health and energy needs.

The 13 winning teams have received funding and mentoring through an acceleration programme, so they could explore how to make their ideas reality. Over the past five months, the teams have taken part in workshops, trainings, expert consultancy, networking events, inspiring talks, visits to peer entrepreneurs and webinars. Each winner has worked on the building blocks of the social business model and was guided through the programme by their own personal mentor—all to prepare them for tomorrow, Demo Day.