The Wilkes Climate Prize 2025 finalists:
The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy has announced this year’s finalists for the $250,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize at the University of Utah.
The annual Climate Launch Prize supports innovative ideas from organizations at all stages, both for-profits and nonprofits—anywhere in the world—to help fund and accelerate solutions to climate change.
This year the Wilkes Center received 1,108 submissions for the prize, compared with just 215 submissions in 2024. (See an interactive map of applicant locations)
The seven finalists are:
- Mlinda Charitable Trust (Jharkhand, India)
- Shamsina (Cairo, Egypt; New York, US)
- De Novo Foodlabs (Raleigh, North Carolina)
- Symmetry Wood, PBC (Los Angeles, California)
- Build up Nepal Engineering (Kathmandu, Nepal)
- OGA Street Tech (Lafayette, Louisiana)
- Roca Water, Inc. (Alameda, California)
Applicant locations from around the world for the 2025 Wilkes Center Climate Launch Prize.
Learn more about the seven finalist teams below.
The finalists will present their solutions during the morning of the upcoming Wilkes Climate Summit on May 15 at the Eccles Alumni House.
The Wilkes Climate Launch Prize is one of the largest university-affiliate climate awards in the world and is geared to spur innovation and breakthroughs. The prize is specifically calibrated to support unconventional or first-of-a-kind projects that often have difficulty getting funding.
The finalists’ solutions will be evaluated by a team of expert judges for scalable impact, feasibility and potential for co-benefits for communities, economies or ecosystems.
The Wilkes Center will announce a single winner of the Climate Launch Prize September 2025.
In 2024, the Wilkes Center awarded Applied Carbon the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize. Applied Carbon has developed a mobile, in-field solution that picks up crop waste left after harvesting and converts it into carbon-rich biochar in a single pass. The resulting product is deposited back onto the field, simultaneously increasing soil health, improving crop yields, reducing fertilizer needs, and providing a carbon removal and storage solution that lasts millions of years.
In 2023, the Wilkes Center awarded its $1.5 million inaugural prize to Lumen Bioscience. The Seattle-based biotech company beat 77 international teams with their proposal to drastically reduce methane emissions from dairy and beef cattle using a patented mixture of enzyme proteins.
The Wilkes Climate Prize 2025 finalists:
Shelly Kerketta, General manager, Mlinda Charitable Trust
Mlinda Charitable Trust
Jharkhand, India
Mlinda's solar mini-grid-based model addresses rural poverty and climate change by integrating renewable energy with economic development. By enabling the setup of micro-enterprises powered by clean energy, the project enhances livelihoods while cutting CO2 emissions. Key innovations include its franchise-based replication model and comprehensive ecosystem approach, combining financial inclusion, capacity building, and market linkages. Piloted successfully, the initiative has already reduced emissions by 285 kg CO2 per household annually and increased incomes by over 50%. Scaling to 750 villages will catalyze sustainable development for vulnerable communities while demonstrating a replicable solution to global climate challenges.
Sarah Mousa, founder, Shamsina
Shamsina
Cairo, Egypt; New York, US
Shamsina manufactures affordable solar water heaters and provides community PV systems for low-income Egyptian households. We target 10 million+ households currently using manual water heating methods (gas tanks, kerosene, fires) and families spending roughly half their monthly income on energy. At scale, our solution can reduce CO2 emissions by over 20 million tonnes annually. Beyond environmental impact, we deliver multiple poverty-reduction benefits: saving women's time spent manually heating water, improving health and safety, and replacing volatile energy bills with stable, lower costs‚ and helping families break poverty cycles through increased financial stability.
Jean Louwrens, CEO and co-founder, De Novo Foodlabs
De Novo Foodlabs
Raleigh, North Carolina
Gabe Tavas, co-founder and CEO, Symmetry Wood
Symmetry Wood, PBC
Los Angeles, California
Bjorn Soderberg, co-founder and managing director, Build Up Nepal
Build up Nepal
Kathmandu, Nepal
Build up Nepal is transforming the construction industry in South Asia by replacing polluting coal-fired bricks with our climate-friendly eco-brick technology. Compared to traditional fired bricks, our solution reduces CO2 emissions by 75%, air pollution by 90%, cuts construction costs by up to 40%, and importantly, is disaster-resilient. Our model supports entrepreneurs to start micro-enterprises that construct affordable, safe homes and create local jobs, helping build resilient communities. By empowering 200 local entrepreneurs, the solution has already built 11,000 homes, avoided 111,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, and created 1,600 green jobs, demonstrating its scalability and transformative potential.
Chimadika Okoye, founder, OGA Street Tech
OGA Street Tech
Lafayette, Louisiana
OGA Street Tech's SustainaStone is revolutionizing concrete, an industry responsible for 8-10% of global CO2 emissions. Unlike traditional alternatives, our instantly reusable concrete creates a circular material system, eliminating the continuous production-disposal cycle. Each reuse avoids 110 kg of CO2 per cubic meter, with highly cautious estimates projecting prevention of 1.2 million metric tons annually by 2030 and 125+ million by 2050, numbers that likely understate the true potential impact. Already validated through our Pothole Pillow product in U.S. and Canadian municipalities, SustainaStone expands beyond road maintenance to broader infrastructure applications while addressing climate goals and infrastructure challenges, particularly in developing regions.
Margaret Lumley, founder and CEO, Roca Water Inc.
Roca Water, Inc.
Alameda, California
Roca is transforming wastewater treatment and nitrogen management through a novel electrochemical process that selectively recovers ammonia from wastewater as nitrogen fertilizer. Our technology addresses two major climate challenges: (1) reducing nitrogen pollution that leads to eutrophication and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, and (2) decarbonizing fertilizer production by replacing energy-intensive Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis with ammonia produced from wastewater. Our mission is to create a new standard for wastewater management to move beyond “dilute and dispose,” to embrace “recover and reuse,” unlocking both environmental and economic value without compromise.
MEDIA & PR CONTACTS
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Ross Chambless
Community Engagement Manager, Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy
(801) 646-6067 ross.chambless@utah.edu