CITY CENTRE - Forty companies from across Metro Vancouver will come together at the new city hall for a one-day competition to earn the title of Greater Vancouver's Clean Technology Champion.
Dubbed the Clean Technology Expo Championship, the pitch-based competition is set for Jan. 28. It will be judged by 12 prominent local and international clean technology investors and buyers, with the winner receiving $10,000 from Vancity Credit Union.
The winner will also go home with a trophy worthy of the clean tech award itself. The prize, a 34-inch oak and stainless steel tower trophy, is sourced locally and designed to be entirely biodegradable and recyclable.
A team of students and faculty from Kwantlen Polytechnic University's (KPU) product design program has been drawing up the trophy since mid-November, and putting in extra hours to present the award.
Stephen De Gouveia, a second-year KPU student and Cloverdale resident who worked on the project, said the trophy is built to last 10 years.
"After those 10 years, we don't know, but we made it so that if they wanted to recycle it, no materials are attached to each other so if you wanted to recycle it, you could take each material separately and get recycled cleanly," he explained.
More than 500 people are expected to take part in the expo, set to run Jan. 28 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at city hall, located at 13450 104th Ave.