3 Festival of Cooling competitions
The Clean Cooling Network is excited to offer three very different competitions for residents of Africa, to showcase how cooling and Cold-chain innovation is affecting our day-to-day lives.
- Photography Competition
- Start-up Pitch Competition
- Fridge Temperature Competition
We are especially interested in encouraging women and youth-led applicants to take part, though all are welcome.
1. Photography competition
As part of the Festival of Cooling, you're invited to show us how cooling manifests in your day-to-day life, whether that's through food, health, nature, technology or another way meaningful to you. It makes no difference if you are a seasoned photographer or like taking an occasional snapshot; we would love you to participate!
Photography competition
Use the power of photography to reflect cooling in day-to-day life
Open to all ages, this is your chance to show us how cooling touches your world, whether that's through:
- preserving food freshness
- protecting vaccines and medicines
- powering livelihoods
- enabling innovation
- simply bringing people together
Closing date, 1st of October. Winners will be announced at the Festival of Cooling on the 9th of October 2025.
* You are required to agree to all competition terms & conditions during registration.
The power of photography
Open now!
Using any type of camera, show us how cooling shapes your daily life and the world around you.
2. Start-up pitch competition
The Phase 1 submission will be done via our online form (deadline 1st October 2025).
Start-up pitch
We are calling on young companies to step forward and showcase solutions that could make cooling and cold-chain smarter, cleaner, and more accessible in Rwanda with potential to scale up in the Global South.
This competition is designed for start-ups that are five years' old or less. We welcome solutions with a working prototype, minimum viable product, or operational model. Your innovation could be in agriculture, health, logistics, e-commerce, technology (hardware or software) or energy, but it must connect to the clean cooling and cold-chain ecosystem.
* You are required to read all competition terms & conditions before registration.
Areas of focus include, but are not limited to: mobile storage (back of an e-bike for last mile delivery), removing field heat of food at the farm, cold storage and refrigeration technologies, IoT-enabled cold-chain solutions, solar-powered or off-grid cooling, temperature-controlled logistics, novel recovery of refrigerants, digital monitoring and optimisation tools, workforce development in refrigeration services, agri-processing innovations, health sector cooling solutions, cooling for food processing and comfort cooling.
Take the stage. Share your solution. Shape the future of cooling.
What happens next:
A longlist of innovators will be invited to the Innovation Day on 9th October 2025 at the ACES campus in Rubirizi to meet with experts across technology, supply chain and scaling, market development, business models and plans, and financing.
- Following the Innovation Day, longlisted teams may submit a full application by 14th November 2025.
- A shortlist of finalists will be selected by end of November 2025 and invited to attend a presentation session (early January; date to be confirmed), where the winners will be selected.
The Organiser reserves the right to withdraw any team that does not attend Innovation Day or that, in interview/verification, does not meet the criteria (including technology readiness).
3. Fridge Temperature Competition
How cool is your fridge?
Show us your fridge
We are excited to welcome a selection of schools and their students to the Festival of Cooling, and we invite you to take part in our Fridge Cooling competition. You will be given a thermometer pack to take away with you to record the temperature of your fridge and how your food is being stored inside it.
On behalf of your students, you can then enter our competition by joining the CCN Network and posting 2 or more photos of each student's fridge showing the temperature of the fridge, showing the thermometer in action, and what the food inside looks like.
School Fridge Competition
Show us how cool your fridges are. Upload photos, from each student, showing the temperature of their fridge and the contents.
*Open to schools only, read the terms and conditions
Enter competition
Upload cool fridge photos
