Avatar Innovations launches Accelerator focused on helping teams competing in XPRIZE $100MM Competition!!
XPRIZE, Avatar Innovations & UCalgary form partnership to run carbon removal accelerator for $100M Prize.
XPRIZE + Avatar is a tailor-made accelerator for technologies and companies interested in the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition. Funded by the Musk Foundation, the $100M Carbon Removal XPRIZE is the largest, most audacious incentive prize in history. To win the four-year competition, teams must demonstrate solutions that permanently remove carbon dioxide and reduce the impact of climate change.
The Avatar Carbon Removal Accelerator will offer teams access to industry customers, partners and investors, workspace and facilities in the newly created Energy Transition Centre in downtown Calgary and the opportunity to collaborate with UCalgary researchers in the institution’s labs and testing facilities.
It offers access to Calgary’s world-leading carbon technology ecosystem and builds on the success of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE completed in April 2021.
The Avatar Carbon Removal Accelerator is supported by some of the world’s largest energy companies - Suncor, Enbridge, Shell Canada, Imperial Oil and Cenovus Energy. Each company has committed subject-matter experts to all teams accepted into the accelerator and will provide unparalleled industry and customer access for these emerging technologies to succeed and reach scale.
UCalgary, a leader in carbon management research, will provide accelerator teams with the opportunity to collaborate with researchers, and access to labs, expert advice, and $1B worth of carbon technology testing facilities. UCalgary will also connect teams with the ecosystem that both supported the creation of Carbon Engineering, one of the world’s largest carbon removal companies, and generated numerous successful finalists for the NRG COSIA XPRIZE.
To support the interface between Canada’s leading energy companies and emerging carbon reduction technology companies, the Calgary Energy Transition Centre will be opened October 1st, 2021 through a partnership between Avatar Innovations and Aspen Properties. This new downtown Calgary space will initially provide the projects admitted into the Avatar Carbon Removal Accelerator with office space and facilities in the newly renovated Ampersand building. This space will boost the networking, productivity and creativity of emerging carbon technology companies right beside the headquarters of some of the worlds’ largest energy companies. The Calgary Energy Transition Centre will then build towards becoming a global energy transition center of excellence with its current partners and interested energy transition and carbon technology groups.