ChangeNOW and INSPIRED Team Up on New €20,000 Challenge for Impact Innovators

The inaugural ChangeNOW Connect Challenge aims to help climate and impact entrepreneurs gain visibility, build lasting networks, and compete for a €20,000 award.

For many entrepreneurs, the most valuable outcome of an innovation summit is not a keynote speech or panel discussion, but a conversation that sparks a future partnership, investment, or breakthrough opportunity. Yet once an event ends, many of those promising connections fade away.

Seeking to address that challenge, ChangeNOW and INSPIRED have launched the inaugural ChangeNOW Connect Challenge, a global competition designed to help climate and impact innovators gain visibility, expand their networks, and compete for a €20,000 award.

Launched this year, the challenge represents a new collaboration between the two organizations aimed at extending engagement beyond the annual summit and into a year-round community of innovators. Participants are invited to create a company page on INSPIRED, publish a virtual pitch presenting their solution, and mobilize public support through an open voting process that runs until June 30, 2026. The innovator receiving the highest number of votes will be awarded the €20,000 prize.

Beyond the financial incentive, organizers say the initiative is intended to help founders build relationships and opportunities that can continue long after a single event concludes.

“People meet, exchange a few words, swap contacts, then lose each other the moment the event ends,” said Maximilian Werner, founder of INSPIRED. “The energy is real, but it evaporates. INSPIRED exists to fix that.”

Founded in 2023, INSPIRED was created to help entrepreneurs, investors, and ecosystem builders maintain meaningful connections after conferences, accelerator programs, and networking events conclude. The platform seeks to transform short-lived interactions into lasting professional relationships through company profiles, communities, and networking tools designed to keep conversations alive between major industry gatherings.

“The goal is simple,” Werner said. “Make the innovation ecosystem feel like one connected place rather than a series of disconnected moments.”

That vision aligns closely with ChangeNOW, which has grown into one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to solutions for environmental and social challenges. Founded in 2017, ChangeNOW convenes entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, corporations, and civil society leaders around initiatives addressing climate change, biodiversity, energy transition, food systems, and social impact. Its annual summit in Paris has become a key meeting point for innovators working to accelerate positive change.

For Werner, the partnership was a natural fit.

“ChangeNOW brings together some of the most committed climate and impact founders in the world,” he said. “That is exactly the kind of community we want to serve. The challenge was a way to give those founders something concrete: visibility, a public profile, and a path to the investors and partners on our platform.”

The collaboration reflects a broader evolution across the global innovation ecosystem. While major conferences remain powerful catalysts for new ideas and partnerships, many organizations are increasingly seeking ways to sustain engagement between annual gatherings. Digital communities and networking platforms are playing a growing role in helping founders remain visible, access resources, and continue building relationships long after the conference spotlight fades.

This trend is particularly relevant for early-stage climate and impact ventures, many of which face challenges securing investment, attracting strategic partners, and expanding market reach despite developing solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental and social issues.

According to Werner, the founders INSPIRED hopes to support are those focused on practical solutions with demonstrated traction rather than concepts alone.

“We are looking for founders solving real environmental and social problems,” he said. “Climate, energy, food and agriculture, and the technologies that help those sectors move faster. We care less about the polish of the pitch and more about the substance of the work.”

Participation in the ChangeNOW Connect Challenge begins with the creation of a company page on INSPIRED. Innovators then join the dedicated ChangeNOW Connect community, publish a virtual pitch featuring a video, image, or project presentation, and encourage supporters to vote through the platform’s public leaderboard.

Organizers are encouraging participants to leverage social media and professional networks to expand their reach and engage potential supporters. Voting remains open until June 30, with registration required to ensure a fair and transparent process.

While the winning innovator will receive €20,000, Werner believes the challenge’s greatest value may lie in the exposure and opportunities it generates.

“Money matters at the early stage, but visibility often matters more,” he said. “The award gives the winner capital to put toward their next milestone, and just as importantly, it puts them in front of the investors and partners in our network. A win becomes a signal others pay attention to.”

The 2026 edition marks the first-ever ChangeNOW Connect Challenge, but organizers intend for the initiative to become an annual opportunity for impact entrepreneurs to gain visibility, strengthen their networks, and access new funding and partnership opportunities.

For participants, Werner offers a reminder that the competition itself is only one step in a much longer journey.

“Don’t treat the contest as the finish line,” he said. “The relationships you build matter more than the result. Share your work, meet the other founders, stay in the conversation. The people you connect with now are often the ones who open the next door.”

As voting enters its final weeks, the challenge serves as both a competition and an experiment in sustaining the momentum generated by global innovation gatherings. For ChangeNOW and INSPIRED, the ultimate goal extends beyond selecting a winner: building a more connected community capable of accelerating solutions to some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

To participate and give your vote, please click here