Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs
What is the vision for the 2050 Accelerator and Innovation Platform?
2050 is a new programme, led by Dogpatch, that aims to make Ireland a leading global platform for sustainability innovation. It will focus on two key activities to drive sustainability innovation forward: the 2050 Accelerator and the 2050 Ecosystem. It’s a win-win - we need to solve climate change and that presents companies and startups with commercial opportunities.
What’s the aim of the 2050 Accelerator?
The accelerator will bring our industry partners (Kerry, ESB and Coillte) together with top Irish and international startups tackling pressing sustainability challenges, to work on practical pilot projects to help them to rapidly scale their impact, with access to dairy farms, wind farms and forestry.
What is the USP of this accelerator?
Access the largest aggregation of national sustainability assets & supports in the world. This will be the only national sustainability accelerator in the world with access to a broad spectrum of national assets for startups to deploy and test solutions on (e.g. forests, fields, buildings, etc.). Ireland has a unique opportunity to be a test bed for sustainability innovation by aggregating public and private resources, and connecting them with startups to deploy new technologies and live pilots.
Startups
What type of startups will be supported?
The accelerator will support sustainability focused startups, particularly those working on the decarbonisation of agriculture, food, energy and forestry. A total of 12 startups will be selected to participate, with a minimum of three Irish startups. Startups will be post-seed/pre-series A. They will have achieved product-market fit and require market acceleration, which will be achieved through live pilots with the accelerator partners.
How do you define ‘sustainability’? What kind of innovation is within the scope of the accelerator and the ecosystem?
It’s primarily about mitigating or removing carbon. That’s the immediate crisis. But it’s not the only crisis. We have microplastics in our ocean. We need to preserve our soil and our water table. So it’s pretty broad - and it needs to be as many of these problems are interrelated, and if you’re going to solve them, you need to be thinking holistically.
What sectors will you be focussing on?
The 2050 accelerator is focused on solving the problems set by our industry partners. Given the semi-state nature of two of the companies (ESB and Coillte) and Kerry’s prominence in agriculture in Ireland, these challenges align with the Government Climate Action Plan and also align with EIT Climate KIC areas of focus.
How long does it last?
The Accelerator programme runs from 15th May to 18th Aug (14 weeks in total), with three of those weeks, known as ‘core weeks’, being onsite in Dogpatch in Dublin with scheduled workshops, talks and mentoring taking place. We expect pilots to take longer than 3 months to establish so there will be a further 3 months of tailored support provided to startups to help them get the pilots up and running with our industry partners once they are happy to proceed.
Why is it called the '2050 Accelerator'?
Ireland, along with the rest of the EU, has set a goal to be climate neutral by 2050. Over the longer term our aim is to make a meaningful contribution to this target and the first step along that path is to identify startups who have innovative solutions to help meet this target. We will work with them to develop practical pilot projects with our industry partners, to help them to rapidly scale their impact.
How does this align with the Government Climate Action Plan 2023?
The three partner companies, which include 2 semi-state companies, all have objectives that are based on achieving Ireland’s sustainability goals as outlined in the Climate Action Plan 2023, particularly in the areas of Electricity, Agriculture and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). Participating startups must contribute towards solving these challenges.
Why would a startup get involved?
We have designed the 2050 Accelerator to give sustainability startups everything they need to accelerate their development and create global impact.
Route to market and collaboration with industry: Distribution is a key concern for sustainability startups. Many find it difficult to get their solutions adopted and this is seen as the main barrier to scaling. Through our accelerator industry partners, startups have the potential opportunity to scope and potentially run a pilot, giving them immediate access to a potential customer and distribution channel and gain valuable feedback on their proposition and business model.
Testbeds: For startups at the validation stage they need access to assets for testing their solution. For example a startup developing control software for the management of windfarms needs a partner willing to give them access to a windfarm. Our industry partners are open to the potential to give participating startups access to and assistance utilising their expansive network of sustainability assets. These include energy assets such as wind turbines, solar arrays and storage. Access to farms, dairy herds and agricultural laboratories. Access to forestry and forestry data and wood production facilities. Dogpatch can also arrange access to further assets through our wider network of companies.
Expertise: Startups don’t have all of the expertise they require in-house. For example carbon markets are evolving rapidly along with ESG policies. The 2050 Accelerator will give startups access to deep pools of expertise. For example OtherLab, a company based out of San Francisco which recently created a presence in Dublin. OtherLab is the largest recipient of ARPA-e funding in the US and has worked on several Google “Moonshots” in sustainability. They work with NASA, the Dept. of Defence, top tier universities in the US and advise the Biden administration on sustainability policy.