WWF Fellowship: Climate Change & Sustainability
Early November 2010, the Hub Zürich launched the first Fellowship Program together with WWF Switzerland and Ashoka Switzerland. We received over 130 applications from around the world, out of which 8 of the most promising initiatives were selected to pitch their ideas in front of a tough jury. Due to the high quality of the pitches, 4 Runners-Up initiatives were spontaneously awarded with complimentary Hub memberships and professional coaching next to the winning team “UrbanFarmers”– who received CHF 34’000 in seed funding and 1 year of unlimited Hub membership to realize their ambitions.
If you would like to learn more about one of the projects, have a look at their profiles below and check out the Fellowship videoblog or simply drop us a mail at info[at]hubzurich.org.
Hub Zürich WWF Fellowship Winner
UrbanFarmers’ ambition is to become a source of inspiration for sustainable cities in the 21st century to local communities, investors and real-estate owners. Dedicated to the ecosustainable production of local food, they develop closed-loop farming systems between fish and vegetables. Their urban farms will reside on city roof tops, vacant urban plots or abandoned industrial buildings in the city. UrbanFarmer’s value proposition is to cost-competitively produce food with a significant reduction in water and CO2 footprints, as well as creating social and cultural value for city residents and neighbors.
Roman Gaus, initiator of UrbanFarmers, has been able to shift his focus completely on the successful realization of the venture thanks to the Fellowship. Say hello when you meet him at the Hub or have a look at their website.
Hub Zürich WWF Fellowship Runners-up
The Runners-Up award includes a one-year Hub 25 membership plus full access to the coaching and mentoring program. This includes direct access to the network of WWF Switzerland and our partner organizations. The following projects were selected as Runners-Up:
The project implements a platform to match transport needs with existing regular and even spontaneous trips which people would take anyway in their daily life. A commuter could potentially transport packages without a significant detour and at the same time earn money, contribute to reducing emissions, and at the same time feel rewarded by contributing to the society. For more details, check out their website.
The team aims to develop and market waterless, portable toilets for private households in poor, urban areas. The focus of their attention is on slums in developing countries. If you would like to learn more, have a look at xrunner’s website.
Cell phones, as well as other consumer electronics, are far from reaching ideal recycling rates. The team will innovate the tiresome experience of recycling. The idea of recycling will be made easy and will even be regarded as an enjoyable process, where consumers have advantages in doing so.
The team creates an “Energy Label for Schools” in Switzerland. Schools can earn this label if they achieve measurable results in various areas. The goal is that the schools which receive the label keep on the right track to produce more energy than they use by 2050.
Hub Zürich WWF Fellowship Finalists
The remaining three projects received a one-year Hub Connect Membership in order to stay connected to the Hub and still profit from the network they can find there. We are very happy to welcome them to the Hub Community.
The goal of this exciting start-up is the development of concepts for system integrated technology solutions in electric mobility.
This is a unique and innovative fund-raising concept for a web-based platform. It uses interactive mechanisms of social and gaming networks to help tackle very important environmental challenges.
The concept is to match the clean water and sanitation needs with the supply of related services and to help to solve the water scarcity and quality (pollution) on a global level.
