A student innovation challenge for carbon removal solutions!
Climate action is needed more than ever. Carbon removal is a key climate solution, but is still far from the scale needed to avert and prevent the worst effects of climate change. To help close that gap, the OpenAir Collective runs an annual global competition inviting university and college students to design and create new approaches for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The OpenAir Carbon Removal Challenge provides students from colleges and universities around the world an opportunity to work towards safeguarding their future. The very best approaches will be selected as finalists, and invited to present their solutions at Carbon Unbound in New York City.
The 2027 Carbon Removal Challenge registration is officially open!
Sign up for our upcoming live webinar with last year’s winners!
2026 Winning Teams
| Teams | Members |
|---|---|
| Gigatonne Bio | Joseph Lee, Alia Almansoori, Kyle Dayton, Milosz Majewski, Evan Moretti |
| MMML Carbon Removal Team/Solvent-Free Manufacturing of Electrified Structured Sorbents for Scalable Direct Air Capture | Injun Park, Junseong Kim, Sieun Kim, Karoline L. Hebisch, Mujin Cheon, Inhwan Park, Minhyung Lee, Juyeon Kang |
| Michigan Carbon Capture: Project SAPPHIRE | Daniel Johnson, Brendan Coffman, Willow Hwang, Elena Runion, Kate Wallace |
| C3W (Carbon Capture with Concrete Waste) | Dr. Ranuri Dissayanaka Mudiyanselage, Noemie Denis, Jackson Kaszas, Karna Krishna, Oleksiy Golub, Richie Campbell, Yu Zhou |
2026 Sponsors
The Carbon Removal Challenge is made possible through the generous support of our sponsors:
Bronze-Level Sponsors
In-Kind Sponsors
Partners
Contact Us
Questions? Comments? Feel free to reach us via Instagram, LinkedIn, or send us an email at carbonremovalchallenge@openaircollective.cc.