Calgary’s Amanda Hall wins the $1-million Women in Cleantech Challenge

After three years of navigating the ups and downs of building a new company, the founder and CEO of Summit Nanotech accepted the prize virtually at MaRS Climate Impact.

Excerpt from the Press Release:

Amanda Hall is now $1 million closer to helping Canada reach its net-zero goals.

Today, Hall, founder and CEO of Calgary-based startup Summit Nanotech, was declared the winner of the Women in Cleantech Challenge, a competition that tasked six first-time women entrepreneurs with scaling their startups over the course of more than three years. Hall accepted the $1-million prize virtually from Canadian author and fellow entrepreneur Margaret Atwood.

“This has been the professional fight of my life,” Hall said. “It is critically important for women to speak up when battling climate change, because the world is worth fighting for. This is an amazing opportunity for me to represent Canada’s women entrepreneurs.”

A geophysicist by training, Hall started Summit Nanotech on the back of her clean and affordable lithium-extraction technologies, which generate considerably less waste than traditional methods. If properly supported and scaled, these innovations, according to the challenge judges, have the potential to revolutionize both the mining and energy-storage industry.

Over the past three years, Hall and her team grew from strength to strength, receiving attention and praise from MaRS stakeholders, as well international cleantech experts. “It’s my pleasure to congratulate grand-prize winner, Amanda Hall,” said MaRS CEO Yung Wu in a statement. “The Women in Cleantech Challenge was designed to help mitigate the gender imbalance in entrepreneurship, and Amanda’s work puts Canada’s climate innovation economy at the forefront at a time when we need it most.”

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