The Fourth Revolution Awards celebrates regional manufacturing and hardtech entrepreneurs for their leadership and innovation as the industry stands on the
brink of a new technological revolution. Winners receive:
Buildings UP aims to build capacity to rapidly and equitably transform U.S. buildings. Teams will submit innovative concepts to leverage funding to equitably transform a wide variety of buildings across diverse geographies. As teams progress through the prize, they will receive cash prizes and technical assistance to help bring their ideas to life.
In Phase 1: “Concept”, teams may apply to one of two pathways: Equity-Centered Innovation or Open Innovation. Winners of both pathways will be eligible to advance to Phase 2 and access technical assistance.
Equity-Centered Innovation Pathway: Concepts to deliver scalable and replicable upgrades to buildings in disadvantaged communities, low- and moderate-income households, and underserved commercial, nonprofit, and public buildings. Phase 1 Equity-Centered Innovation winners will each receive a $400,000 cash prize.
Open Innovation Pathway: Concepts for replicable and scalable solutions that addresses a geographic area or building type. Phase 1 Open Innovation winners will each receive a $200,000 cash prize.
There is also an Application Support Prize, where up to 50 winning teams will be awarded $5,000 and up to 10 hours of technical support. Applicants are intended to be those who might not otherwise have the staff capacity, time, or expertise to submit a full Phase 1 submission — such as first-time applicants for BTO funding and community-based organizations (CBOs) representing or serving areas with equity-eligible buildings.
The American-Made Community Power Accelerator Prize is designed to fast-track the efforts of new, emerging, and expanding solar developers and co-developers to learn, participate, and grow their operations to support multiple successful community solar projects. The goal of this prize is to grow a robust ecosystem of community solar project developers that incorporate meaningful benefits into projects across the United States.
This prize has three phases: Ready! Set! and Grow! By the end of the prize, competitors will be ready to engage with the Community Power Accelerator online platform, which provides a place for competitors to shop their credit-ready projects around to verified project developers, investors, and philanthropic organizations.
The Community Power Accelerator Prize is open to U.S. community solar developers, including new developers, co-developers (organizations who are partnering with a project developer), or developers who are expanding their community solar operations.
The American-Made Community Power Accelerator Prize is designed to fast-track the efforts of new, emerging, and expanding solar developers and co-developers to learn, participate, and grow their operations to support multiple successful community solar projects. The goal of this prize is to grow a robust ecosystem of community solar project developers that incorporate meaningful benefits into projects across the United States.
This prize has three phases: Ready! Set! and Grow! By the end of the prize, competitors will be ready to engage with the Community Power Accelerator online platform, which provides a place for competitors to shop their credit-ready projects around to verified project developers, investors, and philanthropic organizations.
The Community Power Accelerator Prize is open to U.S. community solar developers, including new developers, co-developers (organizations who are partnering with a project developer), or developers who are expanding their community solar operations.
The American-Made Community Power Accelerator Prize is designed to fast-track the efforts of new, emerging, and expanding solar developers and co-developers to learn, participate, and grow their operations to support multiple successful community solar projects. The goal of this prize is to grow a robust ecosystem of community solar project developers that incorporate meaningful benefits into projects across the United States.
This prize has three phases: Ready! Set! and Grow! By the end of the prize, competitors will be ready to engage with the Community Power Accelerator online platform, which provides a place for competitors to shop their credit-ready projects around to verified project developers, investors, and philanthropic organizations.
The Community Power Accelerator Prize is open to U.S. community solar developers, including new developers, co-developers (organizations who are partnering with a project developer), or developers who are expanding their community solar operations.
The American-Made High Temperature Geothermal Geophone Prize is designed to catalyze the development of high temperature, downhole capable seismic monitoring for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) in the American instrumentation community. This is accomplished through a series of prize competitions and the development of a diverse and powerful support network that leverages national laboratories, energy incubators, and other resources from across the United States. The contests provide a total of $3.65 million in incentives—$2.55 million in cash prizes, $1.1 million in vouchers. Winning Phase 2: Design! is required to compete in Phase 3: Build!; however, new teams may join during Phase 2: Design! without competing in Phase 1: Concept!.
The Direct Air Capture (DAC) Commercial Prize awards cash prizes to teams that already have a technology that can capture CO2 and scale it up to achieve a removal target. Teams will win increasingly larger prizes as they successfully scale up their DAC technologies over the course of four phases. Each phase requires compounding progress of the team’s DAC technology development.
The Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Technology Prize awards cash prizes to teams that identify a critical need in the DAC industry, develop a solution to address this gap, and test the idea to a degree of scale. It aims to focus on the steps of ideation and entrepreneurship needed to prepare a technology and business for commercialization. Teams will win increasingly larger prizes as they successfully meet technology milestones over the course of three phases: Dream, Design, and Develop. Each phase requires compounding progress of the team’s DAC technology development.
The Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Prize awards cash prizes to regional incubator teams that submit creative and impactful plans to support entrepreneurs and innovators in the DAC space and create meaningful community engagement. It aims to support both emerging and established direct air capture incubators and accelerators in implementing those plans to develop strong clusters, resources, and connections for energy startups and entrepreneurs.
The Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal applications (CABLE) Conductor Manufacturing Prize aims to help supercharge our U.S. energy and manufacturing industries. Competitors must demonstrate significant enhancements in conductivity and affordability that enable U.S. manufacturers to leapfrog to next-generation materials. Competitors will provide a sample of their material for electrical conductivity testing and preliminary plans to scale-up and manufacture the material according to prize requirements. Any eligible entity can compete in Stage 2 regardless of whether they were a competitor in Stage 1.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is offering $50,000 to $200,000 in prize awards for impactful and inclusive approaches to foster a thriving, collaborative national innovation support ecosystem to advance research and development (R&D) from ideas to impact. By fostering connections between entrepreneurs, advisors, mentors, partners, philanthropies, corporations, investors, and other shared resources, the 2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC) will catalyze strategic ecosystem partnerships to build community and organizational capacity for the successful launch, growth, and scale of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-based entrepreneurs and startups.
The Destination Decarbonization Challenge is a case study competition open to undergraduate students who want to get involved in the energy industry, solve challenges surrounding carbon emissions in their local region, and win some prize money along the way!
