Turning Bold Climate Ideas into Bankable, Scalable Solutions
On Saturday, 22 August 2026, Ángeles Sostenibles, in partnership with Lagos Climate Network (LCN), convened young climate innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, financiers, and ecosystem stakeholders in Abuja for the Climate Bankability Hackathon.
The event was designed around a critical question facing Africa’s growing climate innovation ecosystem:
How do we transform promising climate solutions into ventures that are not only impactful, but also bankable, scalable, and ready for investment?
With a total prize pool of ₦1,000,000, the Hackathon created a platform for emerging innovators from across Nigeria to present their solutions, respond to expert questions, receive constructive feedback, and engage with stakeholders from the climate, finance, sustainability, and entrepreneurship ecosystem.
Beyond the Idea: Understanding Bankability
A strong climate idea is an important starting point, but an idea alone is not enough to attract capital.
For climate solutions to reach the communities and markets that need them, they must demonstrate the potential to become viable and sustainable ventures. This requires founders to think beyond the environmental impact of their solutions and consider questions around business models, scalability, market opportunities, financial sustainability, and access to capital.
The Climate Bankability Hackathon was created to provide a space where these questions could be asked directly.
Participants were challenged to present their solutions before experienced professionals who could assess their ideas through the lens of impact, commercial viability, scalability, and investment readiness.
As LCN reflected after the event, having the idea is only the first step; refining that idea through pitch sessions and expert feedback can help move it closer to becoming bankable.
Bringing Climate Innovation and Finance Together
The Hackathon brought together different parts of Nigeria’s emerging climate ecosystem.
Participants included:
- Climate innovators and founders
- Entrepreneurs
- Investors and financiers
- Sustainability professionals
- Climate and energy practitioners
- Ecosystem stakeholders
- Experts and industry leaders
This diversity was central to the event’s purpose.
By placing innovators in the same room with people who understand finance, investment, business development, climate technology, and sustainability, the event created opportunities for participants to receive perspectives that extend beyond traditional pitch competitions.
The result was an environment where climate solutions could be tested, challenged, strengthened, and evaluated through the lens of investment and scale.
Expert Judging and Evaluation
The participating innovators presented their solutions before a panel of experienced judges drawn from the climate, sustainability, energy, innovation, and investment ecosystem.
The judging panel included:
- Barka Sajou — CEO, Ángeles Sostenibles
- Nosike N. — Media Advisor, Innovation & Climate
- Chibueze Ekeh — CEO, CEESOLAR
- Natasha Aduloju-Ajijola, PhD, MPH — CEO, Vitalera Integrated Consults
- Sa’ad Kamal-deen — Country Program Lead, AECF
The judges brought different professional perspectives to the evaluation process, helping contestants understand what it takes for a climate solution to progress from an innovative concept into a credible, scalable and investable venture.
Meet the Winners
After a day of pitches, questions, feedback, and deliberation, three solutions emerged as the top-performing ventures.
🥇 First Place — Sprintt
₦500,000
Sprintt, formerly known as 93 Rides, emerged as the first-place winner with its sustainable mobility solution focused on creating more efficient and accessible transportation options.
The solution reflects the growing role of sustainable mobility and electric transportation in addressing environmental and urban transportation challenges.
🥈 Second Place — PlastiBuild Africa
₦300,000
PlastiBuild Africa secured second place with a circular-economy solution focused on transforming plastic waste into sustainable building solutions.
Its approach demonstrates how environmental challenges such as plastic waste can also become opportunities for economic value creation and sustainable enterprise development.
🥉 Third Place — Sarkin Kaifi
₦200,000
Sarkin Kaifi took third place with a locally driven climate solution addressing environmental challenges.
Its recognition at the Hackathon highlights the diversity of climate solutions emerging from Nigerian innovators and the potential for locally developed ideas to contribute to a more sustainable and climate-resilient future.
More Than a Competition
While the three winners received financial prizes, the impact of the Hackathon extended beyond the podium.
The event provided contestants with an opportunity to:
Present their solutions to experienced professionals.
Defend their ideas through questions and critical discussion.
Receive expert feedback on their business and climate propositions.
Connect with investors, financiers, entrepreneurs and other ecosystem stakeholders.
Strengthen their understanding of what makes a climate solution investment-ready.
Build relationships that can potentially support their ventures beyond the event.
This emphasis on learning, feedback and connection reflects the broader purpose of the initiative: creating pathways through which promising climate innovations can progress toward greater scale and investment readiness.
Building Nigeria’s Next Generation of Climate Innovators
The Hackathon also demonstrated the growing energy within Nigeria’s climate and sustainability ecosystem.
Young founders and innovators are increasingly developing solutions around areas such as:
- Renewable energy
- Sustainable mobility
- Circular economy
- Waste management
- Climate technology
- Sustainable development
- Environmental resilience
The challenge is no longer simply generating innovative ideas. It is creating the structures, networks, expertise and financial pathways required to help those ideas reach scale.
The Climate Bankability Hackathon contributes to that process by bringing innovation and finance into the same conversation.
The Road Ahead
The conclusion of the Hackathon marks the beginning of a longer journey.
For the participating innovators, the next step is to apply the feedback received, strengthen their business models, deepen their market understanding, and continue building solutions capable of attracting the capital required for growth.
For the wider ecosystem, the event reinforces an important message:
Nigeria has climate innovators with bold ideas. The next challenge is making those ideas bankable.
Through collaboration between climate networks, investors, financiers, entrepreneurs, policymakers and technical experts, Nigeria can build stronger pathways for climate solutions to move from ideas to enterprises, from enterprises to scale, and from scale to measurable climate impact.
The Climate Bankability Hackathon was one step in that journey.
And the work continues.
About the Climate Bankability Hackathon
The Climate Bankability Hackathon was hosted by Ángeles Sostenibles in partnership with Lagos Climate Network, bringing together climate innovation, entrepreneurship, finance and sustainability in a platform designed to identify and support solutions with the potential to become bankable, scalable and impactful.
₦1,000,000 in prizes. 3 winning solutions. Multiple climate innovators. One shared objective: turning climate innovation into investable impact.
Nigeria Circular Economy Week