The Committee
The CleanTech Challenge is a student competition jointly hosted by London Business School and University College London, where students compete in cross-functional teams combining technical and business skills.
We Have One Goal
Reward innovative and sustainable
clean technology ideas
We seek ideas that have the potential to make a significant environmental impact. If your idea falls in this definition, it can be considered “clean tech”. Clean tech includes (but is not limited to) the energy, water, waste treatment and agriculture sectors.
The objective of the Challenge is to identify and reward innovative clean technology ideas that have been taken from a concept phase to a stage in which they would ideally attract Series A funding or otherwise be self-sustainable.
The Challenge is open to all current university students (undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral) at a recognised Higher Education Institution anywhere in the world. For more information, please see the rules.
The Committee
Carina Kern
Scientific Chair (UCL)
Carina recently completed her PhD at UCL and is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Healthy Ageing, and Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, UCL. She has previous experience studying energy transduction pathways in plant light harvesting antennae. She is also
President of London Evolutionary Research Network, and Co-Founder of Discover2Dream
Shrushti Runwal
CTC Co-Lead (LBS)
Currently studying her MBA at LBS, Shrushti brings diverse experiences from founding a startup to investing and strategy consulting. Before her MBA, she worked in impact investing at Ashoka, focusing on climate investments. Her startup developed solutions for waste segregation in South Asia. Most recently, she helped establish a climate fund at a growth equity firm.
Pedro Machado
CTC Co-Lead (LBS)
Pedro is an experienced energy professional, having worked for a large renewable generator in multiple positions including strategy, portfolio management and risk modelling. He joined LBS to get an MBA degree while seeking to maximize the impact he can have on fighting climate change and engaging with the European innovation ecosystem
Jojo Zhou
CTC Vice President (LBS)
Jojo has a blend of experiences working in both digital strategy consulting and the Tech industry. Having participated in the Accelerator programme with startups in the circular economy space, she developed a strong interest in CleanTech and would like to push it further beyond the LBS community. Jojo has strong commitments to pursue a career in tech with social impacts after her MBA.
Griffin Jones
VP of Strategy and Operations (LBS)
Griffin is an experienced strategy consultant from Washington, D.C.. He developed an interest in CleanTech during his tenure advising clients in the agriculture and water technology spaces. Griffin hopes to leverage his MBA and prior strategy experience to contribute to the growth of CleanTech start-ups and scale-ups.
Christine Trentadue
VP of Strategy and Operations (LBS)
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Christine has 8 years of experience in the Tech industry working in the client management space to assist enterprise companies through digital transformations. She joined LBS to explore careers in sustainability, her personal passion, and hopes to leverage the MBA to find ways to merge technolpogy with business strategy. Christine is excited to bring her Tech expertise to the CleanTech Challenge.
Angel Zha
VP Marketing & Communications (LBS)
Angel has 5 years of experience in the automotive industry, transitioning roles from engineering, program management, and business development. Her tenure at CATL sparked interest in the clean energy transition through electric vehicle projects. She aspires to broaden her expertise beyond the automotive sector and actively contribute to the clean energy transition and climate tech sector after MBA
Ethan Musca
VP Marketing & Communications (LBS)
A first year MBA at LBS, Ethan has 4 years experience as a Mining Engineer in the Australian natural resource industry. After spending time in the production side of mining, he joined the MBA at LBS to apply his expertise to sustainability and natural resource consulting, with the aim of decarbonising mining operations.
Elan Code
VP of Outreach (LBS)
Elan has 5 years of professional experience in management consulting at BCG and in energy and natural resources as an engineer. She is currently pursuing an MBA at LBS and is keen to gain experience in scaling low carbon technologies driven by her passion for climate & sustainability.
Zak Szymonski
VP Fundraising (LBS)
Zachary is a seasoned strategy consultant with three years of experience working for EY within the energy sector in Poland, covering solar and hydrogen. His interest in the field was spurred by his degrees in biology and biotechnology. Zachary hopes to use his MBA to grow his worldwide network and bring back relevant investing know-how to his family energy business.