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Homeworld COLLECTIVE

Step 1:SIGN UP

Assemble a team or ride solo! Fill out a quick questionnaire so we can learn a bit about you, your team, and whatever ideas you might already have!

Don’t have a team yet? Looking for teammates? No problem! We will pair you up with a group.

Step 2: Get Inspired

Whether you’re interested in exploring new approaches for an established technology or writing a research proposal for an unproven concept, your first stop should be the Frontier CDR Knowledge Gap Database. This resource is a repository of open questions and high value research topics in the field of carbon dioxide removal.

Not familiar with sustainability or carbon removal? No problem! We will be hosting office hours with experts in the field to help jumpstart your journey starting on April 14th, the first day of the event. Want to learn more before then? Check out these quick links to learn more about different pathways for Carbon Dioxide Removal:

Step 3: INNOVATE

Over the course of three days you and your team will dive into the world of CDR. Your job is to come up with the most creative climate solution you can based on real world examples—drawn from the scientific literature and current industrial applications—and write a research proposal to study its efficacy. For example, your solution may be to use genetically modified potatoes that develop a durable skin that will lock away carbon for thousands of years. In this example, your written submission should take the form of a research proposal, and outline previous research that supports the core tenets of your idea.

Rules:

• You must be able to show that your solution is (mostly) unique. If there is a real world example that is too similar to your proposed solution, it will be disqualified. Although many approaches have already been attempted, all you need to do is figure out some way to distinguish your solution from the crowd, not reinvent the wheel!
• Your solution must have some basis in reality. It’s one thing to propose that potatoes will develop a durable skin, and entirely another to explain how it will actually work. You may even have to rethink your original plan. Maybe instead of recalcitrant potato skin you find that there has been a great deal written about the durability of pollen shells (sporopollenin), and shift your solution towards that angle.
• Your written submission must take the form of a research proposal. Since you are not actually building anything over the weekend, you have no grounds to definitively claim that your solution will actually work. Instead, you will suggest a creative idea related to carbon dioxide removal, cite examples of work that support the key tenets of your idea and ground it in reality, and then design an experimental process to determine its effectiveness.
• Your solution must be related to carbon dioxide removal. Although the mounting climate crisis has many sides, the goal of this event is singular. If you are worried that you don’t know enough about CDR to join this event, our goal is to prove you wrong. In sustainability nobody wins alone, and we would like nothing more than to see you win. We will be providing support throughout the entire weekend to make sure you are able to stay on track; we will be holding office hours with experts in the field, checking in regularly with each group, and answering any questions that you might have.

Step 4: Present

You and your team will give a short presentation on your climate solution to our panel of judges. There will be four winning teams! A grand prize of $200, and three smaller prizes of $100 will be awarded to the winning teams.