Every Spring, the Columbia Venture Competition gives out $350,000 dollars in cash prizes to the next generation of Columbia entrepreneurs.
Alumni judges from Brooklyn to Bordeaux to Beijing evaluate and advise competitors until three winners are chosen for each challenge track, which this year includes: the BlocPower Columbia Climate Challenge; Columbia-CareOne Healthcare All-Stars Challenge; Brown Institute Innovation Challenge in Journalism, Media, and Technology; the StartupColumbia Challenge; the SIPA Dean’s Public Policy Challenge Grant; the Technology Challenge; and the Undergraduate Challenge.
Congratulations to the winners of the Columbia Venture Competition – BlocPower Columbia Climate Challenge!
First place, $15,000 prize
Lectrium
Lectrium’s mission is to make every home EV-ready. Our installation platform makes it simple for homeowners to have their Level 2 chargers installed by certified electricians and simplifies electricians’ work making their services more competitive.
Founders: Peter Barba ’19CC, Zygimantas Zabieta, Lunds University
Second place, $10,000 prize
Sortile
Sortile automates the sorting of post-consumer textile waste. Sortile also took first place in the StartupColumbia Challenge.
Founders: Agustina Mir ’21SIPA, Constanza Gomez ’22BUS
Third place, $5,000 prize
Groverton
Groverton partners with housing authorities and nonprofits to decrease the housing costs for low- moderate- income Americans by providing the equity needed to acquire homes on their behalf.
Founder: Dustin Martelo ’22SIPA
Sponsored by Columbia Entrepreneurship and the BlocPower Community Corporation. The BlocPower Community Corporation is the public benefits arm of BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based climate technology company rapidly greening American cities by leveraging IOT, machine learning, and financial technology to develop greener, smarter, and healthier urban buildings at scale.
This year’s applicants to the Columbia Climate Challenge should be pursuing tech-based solutions for global impact on the future of climate change.