2021 Katerva Awards - Finalists
We are proud to announce the results of the 2021 Katerva Awards. Having been referred to as “the Nobel Prize of Sustainability,” the awards feature ideas that leap efficiency, lifestyle, and create action that is a generation ahead of current thinking.
This is the eleventh year of the Awards and over the course of the year Katerva has received and processed thousands of nominations across five categories: cities & mobility; education & human development; energy & environment; food & water; and health & wellbeing.
Following a rigorous evaluation by some of the world’s leading scientists and experts in sustainability, business, policy and investment two finalists have been selected in each of the five categories. They are:
TransAstra
Conamix
Affectiva (Smart Eye)
Deep Instinct
Malta Inc.
Xampla
WeFarm
Natures Fynd
Insitro
SpacePharma
Congratulations to all!
WHO WE ARE
The Katerva Awards Sectors
For the past decade, we’ve been helping to accelerate ideas that leap efficiency, lifestyle, and create an action that is a generation ahead of current thinking.
To get a sense of some of the amazing things we have come across over the years – many of which have gone to become billion-dollar enterprises – please see below.
Please click on the thumbnail image for a full list of the Awards winners in each category
Food and Water
A society in which everyone is provided with clean water and safe, nourishing food. This includes projects changing what we eat, how we eat, and how we get our food.
2011: The China Study
The China Study is the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted. This exhaustive presentation of the findings from the China Study conclusively demonstrates the link between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
2012: Hampton Creek Food
Hampton Creek Foods make egg substitutes they claim are better than actual eggs. The company was founded in 2011 and has spent all of its time to date conducting research and development. More specifically, it is currently testing plant varieties in a lab in order to identify plant proteins with properties similar to chicken eggs such as gelling and emulsifying.
2013: InFarm
Infarm builds and distributes efficient vertical farms throughout cities. Infarm combines efficient vertical farms with IoT technologies and Machine Learning, to offer an alternative food system that is resilient, transparent, and affordable. The company distributes its smart modular farms throughout the urban environment to grow fresh produce for the city's inhabitants.
2014: Netafim
Netafim is integrating drip technology with a low-tech gravity-based system that enables smallholder farmers in developing countries to cost-effectively increase yields and quality while maximizing water efficiency.
2015: Farmers Business Network (FBN)
Farmers Business Network is an independent and unbiased, farmer-to-farmer agronomic information network whose mission is to improve the livelihood of farmers by making data useful and accessible. FBN utilizes data science and machine learning to provide farmers with product performance, benchmarking and predictive analytics based on real-world performance data.
2016: InnovaFeed
InnovaFeed is a biotech company that produces natural and sustainable ingredients for animal feed and plant nutrition from insect rearing. They contribute to the growth of a high-quality fish farming sector by providing a new source of sustainable, natural and high-performance protein. They also produce high-quality insect oil than can be used in poultry and swine feed, as an alternative to imported oils. Finally, insect dejections are used as an organic fertilizer, closing the nitrogen loop in a circular way.
2017: Apeel Sciences
Apeel Sciences’ edible coating product Apeel can make avocados, citrus and other types of fruit last twice as long as usual.
2018: Perfect Day
Dairy Reinvented: Sustainable. Kind. Delicious. Perfect Day reproduces dairy proteins casein and whey, which are molecularly identical to that of a cow, using data and 3D printing technology. It then manufactures it at scale in fermentation vats.
2019: Mosa Meat
Mosa Meat is a food technology company creating production methods for cultured meat. According to the company, they are making the beef burgers of the future. "Our burgers don’t taste ‘just like’ meat. They are real meat. Real beef that oozes and sizzles with real fats and juices. We’re making these burgers so people can make a positive impact on the planet, simply by swapping delicious beef… with delicious beef. Easy!"
2020: Desert Control
Using fungus to prevent water and nutrients to flush right through sand Desert Control patented Liquid Nanoclay (LNC) Mixture is sprayed directly onto dry, sandy land, creating a water-retaining network in the soil profile.
Cities and Mobility
A society in which everyone can live and move freely, safely and pollution-free. This includes buildings, landscapes, materials, and programs that make cities — and living in them — cleaner, more efficient, more beautiful, and more equitable for their citizens. It also covers innovations and efforts leading to safe and accessible, low- or zero-carbon transportation forms and efforts to improve current methods of mass transportation of materials.
2011: Waze
Waze is a GPS navigational app that collects user input to provide real-time warnings of auto accidents, speed traps, rerouted traffic, and other disruptions on the road. Waze sends anonymous information, including users' speed and location, back to its database to improve the service as a whole.
2012: Mitsubishi Air Lubrication System for Shipping
This invention aims to cut CO2 emissions from ships and increase fuel efficiency. The system sends air to the bottom of the hull, which creates a layer of bubbles, reducing drag and moving the ship more efficiently. The system cuts CO2 emissions by 13%. The goal is to make it the standard for all vessels, from ferries to bulk carriers to cruise ships.
2013: Getaround
Getaround is a peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace. It allows car owners to rent their cars to others using a smartphone app. Users of the service can conveniently rent cars by the hour, day, or week. Getaround may be on the path to change the way we move—or at the very least, cut down on pollution and traffic jams.
2014: Proterra’s EcoRide
With fast-charging technology, the EcoRide bus can stay on the road longer than other electric buses while offering safe and energy-efficient transit. With on-route fast charging, the bus can charge in as few as 5 minutes, keeping it in passenger service for as long as required. The composite body of the bus provides a 20% to 40% weight reduction without jeopardizing safety.
2015: Qualcomm Halo
Qualcomm Halo is a wireless approach to charging electrical cars. Their wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology can charge cars while they're parked or while driving in excess of 100 km per hour.
2016: nuTonomy
nuTonomy is an MIT spin-off technology self-driving car company that focuses on inventing software for self-driving vehicles and autonomous mobile robots.
2017: NIO
NIO Inc. manufactures and sells automobiles. The Company offers electric vehicles and parts, as well as provides battery charging services. Its cars feature the latest NAD (NIO Autonomous Driving) technology and are seen as the next Tesla.
2018: Nuro
Nuro is an American robotics company that develops autonomous delivery vehicles, and was the first company to receive an autonomous exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since its vehicles are designed to carry goods instead of humans. Its second-generation self-driving vehicle is called R2, and is designed with no steering wheel, side view mirrors, or pedals.
2019: Envio Systems
Commercial buildings waste up to 50% of the energy used and account for 40% of the world’s energy consumption. Envio Systems is a pioneer in next-generation building automation. They have developed an end-to-end building management system capable of turning any existing commercial building into a smart building.
2020: Made of Air
Made of Air is a carbon-negative thermoplastic that can replace traditional materials in the built environment, activating our impending urbanization against climate change.
Energy and Environment
A society in which everyone can enjoy clean and sustainable resources and energy. This category includes solar, wind, and any other innovative ideas to create clean power (either for personal use or at a large scale) or new systems for better electricity capture, storage or distribution. It also covers technologies and programs to protect and regenerate forests, oceans, our atmosphere, and other limited environments as well as initiatives to create sustainable land use processes.
2011: 350.org
350.org is creating a global movement to stop the climate crisis through online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions that are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries.
2012: Reef Check
A network of 30,000 volunteers in more than 90 countries monitors the health of coral reefs. Volunteers collect scientific data and turn it over to government agencies.
2013: Aquion Energy
Aquion invented environmentally friendly batteries that can be used in large-scale energy systems like solar and wind power generators. The batteries are made with non-toxic materials like saltwater that acts as the electrolyte.
2014: Retroficiency
Retroficiency is the building efficiency intelligence company for utilities and energy service providers. Its proprietary software platform creates a unique energy model of any building to provide actionable insights that enable the fastest, most cost-effective way to target buildings, engage customers, convert projects and track opportunities at scale.
2015: Ocean CleanUp
The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit engineering environmental organization that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and intercept it in rivers before it can reach the ocean.
2016: Holganix
Holganix produces and supplies plant-based bio-stimulant soil supplements that promote soil health, improve stress resistance and increase crop yield.They serve landscape and lawn care companies.
2017: CarbonCure
CarbonCure is a CO2 utilization technology company serving the global cement and concrete industry. CarbonCure concrete production technology enables concrete to permanently capture carbon dioxide (CO2), while enhancing concrete’s strength and value, upcycling waste CO2 sourced from final emitters such as refineries or fertilizer plants.
2018: WePower
WePower is a green energy trading platform that connects individual business energy buyers directly with energy producers enabling them to purchase energy upfront at below-market rates.
2019: Heliogen
Heliogen has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes.
2020: Solugen
Solugen's mission is to decarbonize the chemicals industry. Solugen combines synthetic biology with metal catalysis to make carbon negative chemicals at scale. Solugen's patented approach takes advantage of bio-inspired reactions to use plant material as a low-cost feedstock to produce novel products cost-competitive with the competition.
Health and Wellbeing
A society in which everyone can enjoy a long and healthy life. This includes products and technologies that improve either personal or global well-being and longevity, from apps to devices, to new medical equipment and treatments.
2011: BioNTech SE
Biotechnology company that develops and manufactures active immunotherapies for patient-specific approaches to the treatment of diseases. It develops pharmaceutical candidates based on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) for use as individualized cancer immunotherapies, as vaccines against infectious diseases and as protein replacement therapies for rare diseases, and also engineered cell therapy, novel antibodies and small molecule immunomodulators as treatment options for cancer.
2012: Bioneedle Technologies
Bioneedles are tiny, biodegradable mini-implants filled with vaccines that are thermo-stabilized. They solve many problems of current vaccines: No needle is involved so needle disposal is not a problem. The vaccines do not need to be kept cold. Implantation is quick and painless. The material surrounding the vaccine absorbs body fluids and degrades within minutes.
2013: Moderna Therapeutics
Pharmaceutical and biotechnology company that’s pioneering a new class of drugs, messenger RNA Therapeutics, that could be used to create a new category of medicines with significant potential to improve the lives of patients.
2014: Spero Therapeutics
Biopharmaceutical company dedicated to identifying, developing and commercializing novel treatments focused on unmet needs of patients with multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections.
2015: Decibel Therapeutics
A clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to discovering and developing transformative treatments to restore and improve hearing and balance, one of the largest areas of unmet need in medicine.
2016: 10x Genomics
An American biotechnology company that designs and manufactures gene sequencing technology used in scientific research.
2017: Lyra
Their mission is to transform behavioral health care through technology with a human touch. The Burlingame, California-based company offers an array of in-person and remote behavioral therapy that helps remove barriers to accessing high-quality mental health care. The company currently serves more than 2.2 million members globally.
2018: Denali Therapeutics
Denali Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of therapies for patients with neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS and others.
2019: BlueRock Therapeutics
BlueRock Therapeutics is an engineered cell therapy company with a mission to develop regenerative medicines for intractable diseases.
2020: NitroPep
NitroPep has developed an approach that bonds antimicrobial actives and disinfectants to both metal and plastic surfaces. Laboratory tests have shown that these surfaces can kill more than 99.99% of bacteria in less than five minutes, including strains of MRSA bacteria that have become resistant to several antibiotics.
Human and Economic Development
A society in which everyone is able and willing to contribute to society. This category covers all initiatives related to maintaining and improving the quality of life for all people regardless of race, color or creed.
2011: Paytm
A full-service mobile money solution that includes Paytm Payments Bank, which is geared towards people who haven’t had access to financial services. Paytm Payments Bank includes debit cards, money market funds, and soon, business accounts.
2012: Kickstarter
Kickstarter campaigns make ideas into reality. It’s where creators share new visions for creative work with the communities that will come together to fund them. To date, over $250 million has been pledged to 24,000 projects. Kickstarter leaves complete creative control in the project owners’ hands and takes a per cent of donations.
2013: Bolsa Verde
BVRio is a nonprofit that develops market mechanisms to support compliance with environmental laws. It has built a platform to trade greenhouse gas credits and a system where the industry pays informal trash sorters who collect bottles, cans and paper and sell them for recycling.
2014: Bitcoin
Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public; nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part.
2015: Social Progress Index (SPI)
The SPI measures the extent to which countries provide for the social and environmental needs of their citizens. Fifty-four indicators in the areas of basic human needs, foundations of well-being, and opportunity to progress show the relative performance of nations.
2016: Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain featuring smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. It is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after Bitcoin. Ethereum is the most actively used blockchain.
2017: Patreon
Patreon is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. The idea is simple: let patrons pay their favorite creators for exclusive content.
2018: Fundación Capital
Fundación Capital is a social enterprise that improves the financial lives of people living in poverty around the world. It designs and delivers solutions that make families more economically resilient, working with governments and financial institutions to co-create economic and productive opportunities. Leveraging digital technologies, research, and a growing network of stakeholders, it works to improve systems and change lives.
2019: OpenStreetMap
Bytedance is a technology company that specializes in the use of artificial intelligence to link people with large amounts of information. The company's flagship app, Toutiao, offers a personalized ranking of news, videos, and content from thousands of media outlets and millions of users and updates them in real-time based on a user’s actions.
2020: Livox
The ability to communicate is fundamental to thrive in society, which means that millions of people whose disabilities involved an inability to communicate verbally are doubly disadvantaged. Livox is software that enables non-verbal people with disabilities and people with learning impairments to communicate and to learn.
What is an Innovation Sprint?
A Katerva Innovation Sprint is a highly structured and intense quest to seek and scale a disruptive solution to a specific social, environmental or business challenge.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Phase 1: Problem Definition through Solution Delivered
Phase 1 begins by working with the client and its partners to define the problem that they’re seeking to address. Once the problem is defined, the focus then shifts to scouring the world in search of new and emerging solutions that either individually or in combination with others could be used to solve the problem. This discovery process is done through a combination of deliberate targeting of key influencers, investors, innovators and experts and wider PR and communication to maximize our audience and the quality of submissions. All submissions go through a thorough vetting process and then are rated and ranked. The most attractive solution providers are invited to pitch their offerings to a curated group of investors and other key stakeholders with a view to attract investment and scale their businesses going forward.
Phase 2: Implementation and Scaling
Phase 2 takes the output of Phase 1 – a small set of solution providers – and hands it off to an investment and impact growth team who are responsible for finding the investment necessary to implement and scale the solution. Like with Phase 1, this work is done in concert with the client and its partners to ensure their needs and interests are central to the process.
A more detailed overview of the Sprint process is as follows:
Phase 1:
- Define: A Sprint begins with a clearly defined problem to which no known solution exists yet if one was to be found it would significantly and measurably improve the lives of millions.
- Collaborate: With the problem defined, it’s time to identify and engage key operatives and partner organizations with a shared interest in resolving it.
- Baseline: This stage allows researchers and data analysts to establish context and a knowledge baseline for addressing the problem. This stage matches our researchers, analysts and other Sprint participants with domain and industry professionals, policy professionals, innovators and entrepreneurs for knowledge exchange and exploration of specific areas to probe for solutions and insights into best practice, novel practice, and emergent opportunities that are just beginning to show up on various ‘radars.’
- Discover: This stage allows the Sprint participants to use their baseline understanding, intellectual curiosity, and personal / professional networks to search for solutions that can address the problem directly, or in combination with other potential solutions. This may result in finding a product, tool, application, or approach that already exists, or potentially some promising research that can be translated into an active solution.
- Evaluate: This stage allows us to take all that we have researched, found, and examined and then to narrow the potential list of ideas and solutions. This is done in collaboration with key opinion leaders, market experts, and industry mavens and takes into account overall potential impact, feasibility of implementation, viability of business metrics, and end-user desirability. This part of the process culminates in presentations to an esteemed group of judges who choose the opportunities that move onto the next stage of the process.
- Deliver: Working in partnership with the client and relevant partners, the team assembles the key component parts into a holistic and systemic solution that creates the desired outcome.
Phase 2
- Scale: Working again in partnership with the client and relevant financial partners, this – the seventh and final – stage of the process is focused on (a) determining funding requirements for implementation and scaling; (b) negotiating commercial terms between solution providers and investors; and then helping structure and syndicate any resultant deals. The end goal is societal impact, sustainability, and market appropriate economics.
Recent projects involving members of the Katerva team:
Please click on the links which will take you to the corresponding page. This will open in a new window/tab in your browser.
Water Management
Energy
Marine Protection
Last Mile Connectivity
Saltire prize for wave and tidal energy
Recycling Behavior Change
Organic Produce Accessability
THE CHALLENGE PROCESS
DEFINE
COLLABORATE
BASELINE
DISCOVER
EVALUATE
IMAGINEER
SCALE
CONTACT US
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EMAIL: hello@katerva.net
INNOVATORS
Welcome! We’re keen to learn more about your innovation and the impact it can have. We’re equally keen to introduce your innovation to a global network of corporations, one or more of whom might be looking for exactly what it is you have to offer. A world of opportunity awaits. With that in mind, let’s get started.
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INVESTORS
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To learn more about our partnership levels and on how to gain access to bespoke dealflow please contact us.