Circular Innovation Challenge 2021 Event

Congratulations to our 2021 Winners: Regenerated Textiles!

This year’s event was a huge success with over 230 attendees, and an outstanding performance from our Circular Innovation Challenge Finalists, guest speakers, and live musicians who graciously opened our Happy Hour segment.

Pitch Finalists competed for the best manufactured product that uses ‘waste’ and recycled materials. After participating in a comprehensive workshop and pitch-prep program, these finalists inspired the audience with a new outlook on how we can be living a more ‘circular’ life.

This event has been inspired by successful programs across the country, such as Austin’s [RE]verse Pitch, and New York City’s Curb to Market Competition, and also locally with Zero Waste WA’s Hackathon and Waste Summit. We have developed our program with an eye to making it an annually recurring one, along with developing resources and a community of practice that will support circular business development and business to business materials exchange year round.

See what you missed from the event!

See our event recording, all of our finalists’ pitches, and who our guest speakers were below! Another thanks to our local partners; Elsom Cellars, who created a Seattle Made label red wine, and Gourmondo who helped to curate our event’s nibbles and happy hour drinks.

MENTORS
A huge thanks to our mentors for supporting our finalists through our six week program! Learn about our 2021 mentors – who provided 1:1 support and circular design and business development workshops for our five finalists. See our 2021 mentors here.

JUDGES
Thank you to our judging panel who reviewed finalist pitches and made our event possible! Our finalists were judged based on five main categories: Circular Innovation, Equity and Community Impact, Positive Environmental Impact, Product Viability and Scalability, and Product Pitch Delivery. See our 2021 judging panel here.

Our 20+ mentors and judges represent a broad cross-section of industry experts from national partners like the United States Business Council for Sustainable Development, to public partners at King County, Seattle Public Utilities, to local partners at Zero Waste WA, BECU, UW, Microsoft, and Second Use. Read more about our five finalists here.

GUEST SPEAKERS & KEYNOTE
Thank you to all of our event guest speakers who made this inaugural event so memorable! Tina Schaefer from Department of Ecology, Christy Chow from EnviroStars, special guest speakers Mami Hara and Pamela Banks: Directors of Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle Office of Economic Development, and our Keynote Speakers: Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evrnu and Senator Mona Das! See their conversations in the full event recording below!

WORKTANK
Thank your to our wonderful partners at Worktank who helped to produce a successful event!

Get Involved!

Interested in learning more about Seattle Good Business Network’s Circular Economy programming and 2022 Circular Innovation Challenge opportunities? Reach out to Nico at gro.doogelttaes@ralucric!