RULES
Eligibility
We welcome applications from all students currently registered on any full time degrees. This includes undergraduate, masters, MBA and PhD programmes. Team members who are enrolled students in January 2026, but graduate before the finals in April 2026 are still eligible to participate. All teams need to consist of at least 1 currently enrolled student.
All team members must be aged 18 or over.
Applicants may apply individually or as part of a team. Individual applicants seeking teammates must apply by 1 December. On 5 December, we will enable contact between individual applicants to facilitate team formation. Once your team is complete, submit your team application by 25 January following the standard procedure.
While there are no academic background requirements, we encourage students to have a mix of business and technical skill sets within their teams.
Stage 1
Stage 1 includes answering some questions about your business idea and submitting the resumes of all team members.
If your stage 1 entry is successful, you will be notified by email and invited to submit a stage 2 entry.
For more information on how to write a compelling business idea, please see the guidelines.
Note that if you don’t have a team yet, you can apply individually (with or without an idea) by 1 December. By 5 December we will release the ability to connect with others. Once your team is formed, you can follow the regular procedure by submitting your team application by 25 January.
Stage 2
Stage 2 entries must be submitted by the specified deadline. If your stage 1 entry is successful, you will be notified by email. You will be asked to submit a Pitch Deck of no more than 10 slides. For more information, check our guidelines.
The competition organisers may help organise the formation of stage 2 teams by connecting existing idea teams with participants who bring desired skill sets to the team, however we encourage you to find members for your teams within your academic institutions or at cleantech events in your communities.
Final
Successful stage 2 teams must ensure that they are available for the full two days during the Bootcamp Finals on 22 April and 23 to attend the seminars, work with their mentor and deliver their final pitch.
Following the presentations, the judges will meet and declare the winners.
Judging
The judging panels will be coordinated by the Challenge organisers. Stage 1 submissions will be judged by the Challenge organiser directly. Each entry will be judged independently by a minimum of two judges. Stage 2 and Finals presentations will be judged by a panel of judges with expertise in the clean tech sector, such as investors, entrepreneurs and those with experience of the industry.
All prizes are awarded at the discretion of the judging panel. All selection decisions of the organisers and the judges are final and not subject to appeal.
Previous Funding
We ask that students who have already established a company for their business idea disclose the name and date of formation of the company. Applicants who have already secured arrangements for capital from any source should disclose the amounts and sources as an addendum to their Stage 1 submissions. Example sources of capital include cash generated from sales revenues, venture capital, proof of concept funding, contracts and personal or family funds. We ask for this because the purpose of the competition is to take ideas through to the ‘proof of concept’ phase. Unfortunately, entries may be disqualified if the organisers consider the funding already secured to have enabled development beyond this phase.
Competition Disclaimer
By submitting an entry to the competition, the participants agree to the following conditions:
Originality: The ideas embodied in entries are the original work of the participant(s) and to the best knowledge of the participants, their use will not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.
Disclosure: All participants give permission to the Challenge organisers to make their submissions available to the organisers, judges and mentors, at all stages of the competition.
Compliance: By submitting an entry, participants confirm that their entry complies with the rules in this document. As a general note, the Challenge organisers, acting on advice from the judges, reserve the right to disqualify any entry that does not comply with the rules of the competition.
Liability: Participants acknowledge that the organisers and judges are volunteers, assisting a student-run, free competition, and have no duty to provide any advice or service to any participant. In particular, any views expressed by the organisers and judges are their own opinions, given in good faith, and not those of the LBS, its subsidiaries or any other person or entity. For the avoidance of doubt, teaching or mentoring provided to students during the competition is not a substitute for professional advice necessary to develop any idea into a commercial venture.
Participants understand and agree that, save in relation to personal injury or death caused by negligence or in respect of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation,
(a) No warranties are made in relation to the competition or views expressed by or conduct of organisers, judges and mentors; and that
(b) Neither the organisers, judges, mentors nor LBS shall be liable for any damages or expenses of whatsoever nature and howsoever arising in connection with an entry, the competition or views given by the organisers, judges and mentors.
Confidentiality And Intellectual Property
Stage 1 entries will be seen only by the Challenge organisers, while Stage 2 entries will be seen only by the Challenge organisers and Stage 2 judges. Phase 3 presentations will be seen by Stage 3 judges, other successful Stage 2 teams, Challenge organisers, mentors and attendees of the Final Pitches.
The participants agree to respect the confidentiality of any information disclosed by the other participants of the competition.
The competition will provide opportunities to share and develop clean tech ideas through workshops, networking sessions and a boot camp. The organisers will take reasonable steps to keep entries confidential, subject to the need to share and circulate information as necessary to facilitate smooth running of the competition. Participants should therefore be aware that, while participants agree to keep others teams’ information confidential, this provides no formal legal protection of participants’ intellectual property.
All entries and presentations (including verbal and written material) made as part of the Challenge should be made with full understanding of your academic institution’s regulations on intellectual property rights. It is the responsibility of the participants to ensure that no third party, such as a research sponsor or another member of your institution who participated in your research, has any rights on the contents, which may prevent its disclosure and use. Such proprietary information relating to the idea should not be disclosed.
The organisers, LBS will take no responsibility to protect the intellectual property of any participants or teams. The protection of intellectual property or other rights of each participant is his or her own ultimate responsibility. If in doubt, please seek professional advice.