Cities occupy just 3% percent of the Earth’s land but account for 75% of carbon emissions. With the urban population expected to grow 1.5X to 6 billion people by 2045, developing sustainable cities is a crucial component of the fight against climate change. — UN Sustainable Development Goals #11
Responding to this global crisis will require innovation and collaboration across industries, governments, startups, and global corporations. From energy transformation to mobility & transportation to the built world to the circular economy—clean tech investment and innovation is surging. With this demand comes a rapid proliferation of startups working to solve today’s biggest sustainability challenges.
We designed the AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator for mature startups and emerging companies looking to drive commercial and technical milestones. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies and growth acceleration from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and our partners in support of scaling solutions to support sustainable cities, we aim to achieve these successes in a rapid manner. Sustainable Infrastructure / Built Environment is the second cohort of 2022 for the AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator.
"I believe that climate change is the issue of our generation. Amazon has the scale and the innovation capability to make a real difference for the world. We view that as both a responsibility and an opportunity."
"This is our first accelerator focused on fostering rapid growth of clean tech innovation. The goal is to help startups accelerate their impact access additional resources and expand their reach."
— AWS CEO, Adam Selipsky
The Sustainable Cities Accelerator is a virtual six-week, technical, business, and mentorship accelerator delivered by Freshwater Advisors and Public Spend Forum, along with other industry-leading partners. You will get to work with leading AWS technical experts to build and scale your cloud platform.
The program delivers up to 75 hours of support, and participants will be able to access the AWS Partner Network (APN) to build connections and potentially gain pilots and partnerships. During the program, the companies will benefit from both the technical and commercial expertise at AWS, along with connections to participating corporations to help optimize and deploy sustainable solutions for cities that align with their mission and objectives.
We will also bring in public and private industry leaders to collaborate with you on topics ranging from developing strategic partnerships, legal and regulatory requirements, AWS cloud deployment resources, capitalization and investment strategies, securing and working with public sector customers, and more.
Our mission is to build a diverse cohort of startups from across the sustainable infrastructure / built environment industry that have demonstrated commercial traction in terms of revenue and the potential to scale. The core goal of this AWS Sustainable Cities Accelerator is to help mature startups accelerate their impact, access additional resources, and expand their reach.
We are searching for companies to participate from around the world. If you are a startup working in the area of sustainable infrastructure / built environment, we want to hear from you. We welcome companies from growth stage to series C and beyond. Our program is unique compared to how other accelerators typically operate, as it has no exchange of cash for equity, and is focused on partnering innovative startups with public and private sector leaders around the world to help startups accelerate their growth and deploy pilot programs and partnerships with new customers.
September 12
October 21
Nov 7 – Dec 16
TBD 2023
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