HyveGeo wins Dubai Holding's top innovation award

UAE climate-tech company HyveGeo has been crowned the winner of Dubai Holding's Innovate For Tomorrow Impact Accelerator, securing pilot funding and the opportunity to test its solutions within Dubai Holding's business ecosystem.

The announcement was made during the Demo Day event in Dubai, which brought together investors, partners and industry leaders to hear pitches from the programme's top five finalists.

"Innovate For Tomorrow" is Dubai Holding's flagship sustainability accelerator, designed to support scale-ups developing circular economy solutions. Now in its second edition, the initiative focuses on tackling challenges including food waste, resource recovery, regeneration and digital innovation for sustainability.

This year's competition attracted more than 1,400 applications from 93 countries, highlighting growing global interest in sustainability-focused entrepreneurship. 

Following a rigorous selection process, 15 scale-ups were chosen to take part in a 12-week accelerator programme that ran from January to April, providing mentorship, masterclasses, investor access and opportunities to develop pilot projects within Dubai Holding's diverse portfolio.

Tala Khlat, Director of Philanthropy at Dubai Holding, said the organisation believes the participating companies have the potential to create meaningful real-world impact, and added that when Dubai Holding looked at the solutions, they also looked at those priorities to make sure they are impactful, and contributing to the ambition of the UAE.

The programme culminated with pitches from the top five finalists, who presented solutions aimed at accelerating the transition towards a more circular and sustainable economy.

HyveGeo claimed the top prize for its climate technology, which is designed to transform arid and desert land into fertile soil while supporting food security and carbon removal efforts.

Chief Executive Abdulaziz Redha said winning the competition would help the company accelerate its next stage of growth. He said they can now start showing at a pilot scale with Dubai Holding, how the technology works, how it saves  money in terms of water savings, but also brings waste waste back and puts it into the circular economy.

In addition to pilot funding and implementation support, the winners shared a total prize pool of AED850,000, with first place receiving AED500,000, second place AED250,000 and third place AED100,000.

Now in its second edition, the Innovate For Tomorrow accelerator programme was launched by Dubai Holding to identify and scale practical solutions that can support the UAE's sustainability ambitions, including the UAE Circular Economy Policy 2031 and Net Zero by 2050 strategy.