CHENNAI, APR 25   :   The IIT-Madras has announced the top 25 teams that form the fourth Cohort of the annual Carbon Zero Challenge (CZC), a pioneer pan-Indian competition to encourage start-ups in the Sustainability Sector.

The teams were announced during the ‘Embarkment’ event held at the IIT-M campus on Wednesday.
A release from IIT-M here today said the CZC 4.0 launched the fourth cohort during January 2024 and has provided funding to 100 teams with over Rs. 5 crore in total.

It has served as a seedbed for 13 start-ups and has transformed 42 students/researchers and eight faculties into entrepreneurs.

The selected top 25 teams comprise students, early-stage startups, faculties, and researchers who showcased their sustainable and circular economy solutions in Water and wastewater, renewable energy, sustainable packaging and building materials, eco-friendly cold storage and transportation and waste management.

These teams will be given six months and upto Rs. 5 lakh to develop their prototype, it said.
The CZC is being supported by Thales, a French multinational company, and Aquamap Centre for Water Management – IIT Madras.

The latest edition of CZC4.0 received 850 applications with validated proof of concept from 25 States, from which 25 teams were shortlisted after two rounds of stringent evaluations by 50 experts.

The primary goal of CZC is to foster cutting-edge deep-tech and circular economy solutions that address environmental challenges in Energy, Materials, Agriculture, Air and Water domains. By leveraging the collective ingenuity and expertise of talented individuals from across India, the challenge seeks to build eco-start-ups which can address planetary crises such as Climate change, Pollution and Food security.

Addressing the event, Mr A.R. Rahul Nadh, Director, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of Tamil Nadu, said, “The Theme of Carbon Zero Challenge 4.0 is ‘circularity and sustainable innovative solutions’ in resources, which is the need of the hour.

The world is grappling with a growing demand for resources while the supplies are limited. The world needs to move towards circular economy and the Carbon Zero Challenge serves as a great platform towards this purpose.

The prototypes developed here will have the potential to revolutionize various sectors from energy to water and waste management, he said.(UNI)