“It’s gonna be big, get ready for scale and it’s not going to end tomorrow”, keynote speaker Danny Kennedy on fixing climate change
Sunny and vibrant Cyprus today set the perfect stage for our Global Grand Final with the historic location provided by Carob Mills in the middle of Limassol the best possible spot.
In the opening speech hosts Frans Nauta (ClimateLaunchpad founder) and Paris Thomas (Chrysalis Leap) talked us through the numbers ever since the early days back in 2014. If you’re interested, check the infographic we made.
Frans Nauta then explained the reason we’re doing all this: carbon. Frans: “Do you know why BMW sold 10,000 electrical cars last month? A few guys getting into that business is why, Tesla is why. Change always starts small. That’s why we fix climate change one start-up at a time.”
The keynotes by Danny Kennedy (co-founder Sungevity & Powerhouse) and Jan van der Tempel (founder Ampelmann) really warmed up the room before the semi-finals started.
Danny Kennedy on fixing climate change:
“It’s gonna be big, get ready for scale and it’s not going to end tomorrow.”
Jan Ampelmann to all participants:
“Do the entrepreneur thing, learn how to pitch, play by the rules, build a network, have fun.”
All afternoon out of the 1,000 applications we received this year, the 105 best of the best pitched their green idea in the semi-finals. 15 of them will make it to the Grand Final tomorrow, Top-3 will win money prizes and Top-10 will win a spot on the Climate-KIC Accelerator.
The end of the day fireside chat with Alejandro Lozano left us with his advice to get comfortable with being uncomfortable: “You will surpass massive amounts of people if you can do that.”
Up tomorrow:
- Theme awards
- Expert sessions
- Announcement of teams to pitch in the Grand Final
- The Grand Final
- Award Ceremony
- Closing Speech by the Minister of Interior of Cyprus: Mr. Constantinos Petrides
- After party on the beach 🙂
We’ll be back tomorrow. Live stream for the Grand Final on our homepage in the afternoon.
