Department of Architecture and JPGMPH of Brac University with UDP Brac becomes FINALIST in the Million Cool Roofs Challenge international competition

The 10 finalists for the Million Cool Roofs Challenge—a global competition to accelerate access to affordable, sustainable cooling through rapid deployment of cool roof materials—have been named. The award-winning projects have each received $100,000 to deploy their solutions between September 2019 and December 2020, and include a range of innovative technologies and approaches for deployment in residential, municipal, and commercial buildings. In 2021, $1 million will be awarded to the team that has demonstrated the best sustainable and transferable model for rapid deployment of cool roofs, with the aim of deploying 1 million square meters of cool roofs. Final projects will also be judged on the effectiveness, viability, scalability, and sustainability of their approaches.

On the margins of Climate Week, the Million Cool Roofs Challenge finalists joined our Induction Workshop to kick off the main implementation and scaling phase of the challenge. Teams from Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa spent 3 days building relationships and sharing intelligence. Attendees heard inspiring and insightful talks from each of the MCR Partners – K-CEP, Nesta Challenges, Global Cool Cities Alliance and SEforALL. Kizzy Charles-Guzman, Deputy Director of the NYC Mayor’s Office for Resilience, and an MCR judge, shared her experiences from the award winning NYC Cool Roofs Initiative.