Deadline: 24-Oct-21
The Enterprise Singapore (ESG) is collaborating with key industry partners to launch the 1st Round of the 2021 Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge (SOIC) to help build a brighter future for the planet with challenge statements in key sustainability areas such as sustainable materials, waste management, and many more.
This Challenge is sponsored by Enterprise Singapore (the “Organiser”) and by Alliance to End Plastic Waste, Changi Airport Group, EM Services, ExxonMobil, Mercedes-Benz and WWF (the “Challenger Owners”); with the full support of Agorize (the “co-Organiser”) for all aspects of the Challenge.
The ESG is inviting innovative companies to participate in this challenge not only for the chance to collaborate with major partners, testbed and access funding to develop the solutions, but to also play a critical role in building a more sustainable future for the world.
Focus Areas
SOIC 2021 (Round 1) will be focusing on three challenge areas based on:
- Waste Management
- Designing of a low-cost & drop-in manual or semi-automated sorting line for sorting recyclable materials from mixed household waste: Alliance will grant a prize award of S$20,000 for the winning prototype design or a combined S$50,000 [S$10,000 additional bonus] if a solution provider can handle both the challenge statements by Alliance.
- Development of a proof of concept (PoC) to utilize advanced detection systems to improve the sorting accuracy and hence quality of sorted plastic fractions: Alliance will grant a prize award of S$20,000 for the winning prototype design or a combined S$50,000 [S$10,000 additional bonus] if a solution provider can handle both the challenge statements by Alliance.
- Achieving Changi Airport’s Zero Waste Vision: Up to S$30,000 funding support for paid trial; Winning company/ies will also benefit from the physical space within the airport boundary to facilitate trials to testbed their innovative solutions.
- Increasing accessibility of food waste management for most food establishments
- Implementing environmentally friendly and less labour-intensive solutions for hawker centres
- Develop new technologies for engineered polymers to enhance recyclability and/or biodegradability
- Sustainable Materials (Packaging/Plastic Value Chain)
- Carbon-neutral new passenger car fleet
- Establish value chain to convert plastic and/or diaper waste in Singapore to ISCC certified circular polymer feedstock
- Sustainable Food Source
- Enabling efficient automated sustainability assessments of seafood procurement for businesses:WWF-Singapore will provide S$20,000 in seed funding for the winning proposal.
Eligibility Criteria
- The competition is open to Startups and SMEs across the world.
- The Challenge is open to all local and foreign registered startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs), Institute of Higher Learning and Research Institutes. All applicants/entrants/participants (“Participants”) must be above the age of 18 years old as at the date of entry and must submit their project proposals.
- Employees, representatives and family members of the Joint Organisers should declare such relationships to the Joint Organisers that they are submitting their Project Proposals to.
- Project Proposals with solutions that have received funding from other programmes run by government agencies or statutory boards should declare the funding received and project details to the Organiser.
- Enterprise(s) collaborating with Public Researchers; Public researcher(s) can participate by either:
- Registering a new spin-off to license the technology, led by a committed and capable team; or
- Submitting a joint proposal with an enterprise (the enterprise has to co-develop the solution, lead the proposal submission and eventually commercialise the proposed solution).
- For all challenge statements under the Sustainability Open Innovation Challenge 2021 – Round 1, the Organiser may support local SMEs with the Enterprise Development Grant (“EDG”) (for eligible enterprises). Awarded participants are required to submit a proposal for the grant through the Business Grant Portal (“BGP”). More information on documents required for submission can be found in the application form in BGP. The proposal and agreement will then be reviewed by the Organiser to determine the final amount of funding.
For more information, visit https://sustainability.innovation-challenge.sg/en/challenges/round-1?lang=en