G20 TechSprint 2021 on Green and Sustainable Finance Open for Submissions

Prizes of up to €50,000 are available for teams developing innovative technological solutions to resolve operational problems in green and sustainable finance.

G20 TechSprint 2021 is an innovation challenge established by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub centre in Singapore and Banca D’Italia (Bank of Italy) within the G20 Italian Presidency. The objective of TechSprint is to involve developers, designers, creators, data scientists, start-ups, digital marketing and communication experts in highlighting the potential for innovative technologies to resolve operational problems in the areas of green and sustainable finance.

This second edition of the competition – G20 TechSprint 2021 on Green and Sustainable Finance – is seeking innovative technical and technological solutions to resolve operational problems in green and sustainable finance, focusing on three ‘problem statements’ which were developed in consultation with the G20 and represent common high priority gaps in the green and sustainable finance space.

There is a total challenge fund of €360,000 for the 2021 competition, which includes a €10,000 prize for each shortlisted entry and a €50,000 main prize for the winner of each category. The three problem statement challenges for the 2021 competition include:

  • Data Collection, Verification and Sharing– methods and technologies (eg IoT, blockchain, smart sensors, GPS) to contribute to an information disclosure ecosystem for environmental risk analysis
  • Analysis and Assessment of Transition and Physical Climate-related Risks– tools to enable institutions, corporates, regulators and relevant stakeholders to visualise, predict, assess and monitor transition and physical risks posed by climate change using big data ingestion, predictive analytics and visualisation tools to better assess and analyse risks
  • Better Connecting Projects and Investors– can technological solutions (eg digital identity verification, demand aggregation platforms, large scale, and easily accessible trading platforms) help connect and enable projects and investors to scale up their impact in a secure way while respecting data privacy policies in individual countries?

Participation is open to teams of any nationality and from any country or jurisdiction. Team members should have an interest in technological innovation to solve sustainable finance challenges and a proven track record of developing and delivering scalable solutions, such as writing software, designing user experiences, or product management.

Teams should register on the G20 TechSprint 2021 competition website in order to enter.

The closing date for the submission of proposals is 31 May 2021 (4pm CEST).

Following initial judging of all submissions, a maximum of seven entries per problem statement will be shortlisted and will advance to the solution prototyping phase. Teams will than have a further three months to develop their prototype before final judging to determine the winner of each problem statement category. Shortlisted entries will be announced in June 2021.