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The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy has announced this year’s finalists for the 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 received 1,108 submissions for the prize, compared with just 215 submissions in 2024.  (See 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)

Learn more about the seven finalist teams below.

The finalists will present their solutions during the morning of the upcoming on May 15 at the Eccles Alumni House. Tune in virtually at .

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 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 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:

Mlinda Charitable TrustJharkhand, 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.

ShamsinaCairo, 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 CO₂emissions 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.

De Novo FoodlabsRaleigh, North Carolina

De Novo Foodlabs is revolutionizing food protein production by using precision fermentation (PF) to create essential proteins with engineered microorganisms—no animals required. Our first focus is milk proteins, with high-yield yeast strains already developed for our launch product. Now, we’re taking the next leap: expanding our PF platform to not just lower emissions, but to actively capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This breakthrough would make our process net carbon negative, enabling protein production that helps reverse climate change. Our technology also paves the way for the broader PF industry to become a powerful tool for carbon capture.Symmetry Wood, PBCLos Angeles, California

The harvest of tropical hardwoods directly releases at least 1.05 billion tons of CO₂ emissions every year globally (Pearson, 2017). Plus, a forest degraded by loggers is 8x more likely to be completely deforested, leading to further emissions. To address this problem, Symmetry is creating a new type of high-performance wood from food waste, Pyrus ^TM, that involves no tree cutting or petrochemicals like epoxies. If Pyrus ^TM replaced 25% of global annual tropical hardwood imports, it could prevent an amount of CO₂ -eq nearly 5x the combined yearly GHG emissions from cement and steel production in the U.S.

Build up NepalKathmandu, 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.

OGA Street TechLafayette, Louisiana

OGA Street Tech's SustainaStone is revolutionizing concrete, an industry responsible for 8-10% of global CO₂emissions. 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.

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 (Nâ‚‚O) 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.

About the 2025 Wilkes Climate summit

In addition to featuring this year’s round of climate prize finalist presentations, this year’s Wilkes Climate Summit will include keynote talks by Conor Walsh, assistant professor at Columbia Business School studying the energy transition and the global rise of solar power, along with Jane Lubchenco, University Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University, marine ecologist, former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Afternoon breakout sessions will include the topics of water resources, climate & outdoor recreation; wildfire risks and insurability; energy frontiers in Utah; and student lightning talks from Wilkes Scholars. U graduate and undergraduate students will also showcase their climate-related research projects and compete for cash prizes.

The summit is free and open for U students, faculty, and the public to attend. Registration required:

About the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy

The leverages the University of Utah’s unique position and environment to drive world-class research on climate change forecasting, impacts, and solutions and places this science in the hands of decision-makers. Drawing on multidisciplinary centers of excellence at the University of Utah, the Wilkes Center strives for practical, integrative, and solutions-oriented research that can translate into policy around climate extremes, including wildfire and drought, air quality, natural ecosystems, carbon and water cycling, human environment, and health. The center is fostering educational and research training programs that support climate innovation and developing a new generation of solution-oriented leaders.