Flagstaff

It’s called the City of Innovation for a reason

CITY OF FLAGSTAFF

Innovation happens here and it keeps happening again and again. Flagstaff businesses use science at work every day to incorporate stewardship into their business practices The Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge (IW:TCNC) provide a platform for ideas to compete. You will see science is at the root of these two topics and you may even begin to feel a new sense of pride in this innovative community we call home, and we call Flagstaff

The Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge (IW:TCNC) occurred over the first weekend in May this year marking four years in a row of next-level entrepreneurship Hosted by the dynamic team known as Moonshot@NACET,this broad effort to“grow your own”businesses,has morphed into growing business incubators and businesses and innovation at the same time.

Over 20 years ago the Flagstaff community created a collaborative team from local, regional, state, and federal partners to deliver the first business incubator in northern Arizona. Whereas pioneering and collaboration have been the hallmarks of northern Arizona since people first roamed red rocks shaded by ponderosa and juniper,recent efforts have continued to demonstrate the same willingness to work together to do big things The City of Flagstaff Economic Development and Sustainability Offices have done just that as they partnered with Moonshot@NACET to deliver the Pioneer Pitch and Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge which complements the Pioneer Pitch.

Before getting into the details, it is important to acknowledge the courageous people and their ventures as participants in both events:

 BizFit, delivering unique fitness programming for residents and visitors

 HWY 89A, inviting visitors to commemorate their connection to red rock country and the Colorado Plateau

 Starter Video, video and image production outfit focused on sustainability

 Blockchain Unmasked,a fraud recovery unit focused on cryptocrime and more.

 NAZ Local helping visitors to access unique local offerings in the marketplace.

 Missions and Madness teaching collaboration and leadership through outdoor activities

 Pitch, delivering entrepreneurship curriculum to youth from kindergarten through high school.

 WelcomedHere,helpingthosewithnon-apparent disabilities navigate communities

 Whole Heartedly Nuts, delicious nut bars that are 100% healthy

 Ponderosa Trees & Bumble Bees Preschool, a forest preschool fostering total health.

 Convergent Dynamics, optimizing the energy grid for fiscal savings and robust analytic power

 Silvaflux, creating financial feasibility in reforestation efforts

 4 Corners Carbon Coalition, producing ultra-low carbon concrete blocks to build afford- able housing units in Flagstaff

The Pioneer Pitch is a series of statewide events held in the spirit of the television show Shark Tank in which entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of judges The best and most ready to advance all come together in the summer to compete among the best of the best The Pioneer Pitch is open to all types of of business ideas and serves as a solid complement to IW:TCNC To learn more about the Pioneer Pitch,visit the team known as Moonshot@NACET online at https:// www.moonshotaz.com/ or go visit them in person at the NACET Campus on McMillan Mesa in Flagstaff

Now to focus on the four ideas pitched at Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge has the potential to marry stewardship and industry for the betterment of the planet and for us, the people who make the earth our home.

4 Corners Carbon Coalition pitched a collaborative project in which Block-Lite will use environmentally friendly manufacturing to produce ultra-low carbon concrete block that will be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Northern Arizona as they build quality,sustainable affordable housing in Flagstaff This project is checking all the boxes Block-Lite is a third generation, Flagstaff owned and operated business powered completely by solar For this project, they are working with CarbonBuilt and Aircapture to implement an innovation that allows for carbon to be harvested from the atmosphere and used in the manufacturing process to ultimately create stronger concrete blocks The process known as direct air capture (DAC-to Concrete) is not new It is a known technology that enhances production, lowers costs, and adds strength.

What is new, is co-locating the direct air capture mechanism on the same property where the blocks are manufactured Proximity matters as the closer processes and materials are to production and the consumer, the lower the costs for production and transport. All material going into the blocks is locally sourced from locations no more than 80 miles away

This winning project when successfully completed with new, affordable, ultra-low carbon homes in Flagstaff, will serve as an example of innovation meeting the current and future needs of Flagstaff while enhancing the environment and creating jobs; Block-Lite may double their production capabilities which means more jobs

Silvaflux and Convergent Dynamics tied for the runner up position and are poised to have an enormous impact on the climate.

Silvaflux is commercializing a newly discovered climate cooling service by forests that will bring greater profitability to reforestation efforts This is a tall order,and Silvaflux is doing this right now in Flagstaff Their technologies and discoveries have the potential to facilitate reforestation projects around the world where it is needed most. Silvaflux will provide the data necessary for reforestation projects to issue 30% more credits on top of what they already produce. As a result, reforestation projects will become more profitable, and hence more common across the globe.

Convergent Dynamics is using computational power/demand analysis to help regulate (load balance) the energy grid. As renewable energy sources increase, so does fluctuation and uncertainty between supply and demand. By partnering with the growing renewable grid in Arizona,we can get cheap power for a computational warehouse that will respond to grid demand (decrease when power is scarce, cost and contract driven) and can help provide constant load when power is in high supply Computing would primarily be short time slot cloud computing, with gap filling Crypto mining when energy is cheap, and reward is high.

Ponderosa Pines and Bumblebees Preschool is another project that was pitched at the Innovate Waste: Carbon Neutrality Challenge. The preschool will provide an outdoor curriculum to children between the ages of 3 and 5 years old The preschool will be housed in a forest environment and will build a yurt that will be used for a variety of things including protection from the elements as needed The unique science to the forest school concept falls heavily on the brain development of a child. Outdoors, hands-on-play provides the types of interactions to set children up for better overall health in their adolescent and adult lives While this idea appears to be less scientific than the others, it is a catalyst in early development producing potential innovators of the future. This marks the fourth year of the Innovate Waste: The Carbon Neutrality Challenge, and while the name has changed over the years, the innovationscontinuetoimpress Thesciencethat isatworkinalloftheseisindeedimpressive Learn more at https://www chooseflagstaff com/innovate-waste-the-carbon-neutrality-challenge/