Takachar (also known as Safi Enterprises) named 1 of 23 winners in the $5M Carbon Removal Student Competition as part of the $100 Million XPRIZE for Carbon Removal supported by the Musk Foundation.
XPRIZE, the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges, announced that 23 student-led teams have won the $5M Carbon Removal Student Competition - which includes UBC team Takachar (also known as Safi Enterprises). The award program, which is part of the $100 Million XPRIZE for Carbon Removal supported by the Musk Foundation, was launched, in part, to fund early stage concepts from the next generation of carbon removal innovators and to remove barriers to entry for those interested in the main competition.
Competing student teams had the opportunity to submit their concepts for an award in one of two tracks, Carbon Dioxide Removal Demonstrations or Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Technologies.
Takachar (Safi Enterprises), a team a part of entrepreneurship@UBC's Venture Founder: CORE, has been announced a winner in the Carbon Removal Demonstrations category being awarded US$250,000. They are on a mission to fight climate change by transforming massive amounts of waste biomass into marketable products around the world. Using a novel concept called oxygen-lean torrefaction, the venture has developed and patented the design of small-scale, low-cost, portable equipment to convert waste biomass into solid fuel, fertilizer, and other specialty chemicals.
Takachar was recently in the news for winning Prince William's inaugural £1 Million Earthshot Prize in the Clean Our Air category. Their Founder and CTO Kevin Kung is a postdoctoral fellow in Chemical and Biological Engineering at UBC.
Winning student teams are able to use funds to compete in subsequent rounds of XPRIZE Carbon Removal or to develop key supporting technologies which will enable carbon dioxide removal.
For more information on XPRIZE Carbon Removal, click here.
Congratulations to team Takachar/Safi Enterprises!
