RISE is a non-profit, economic development organization with a mission to accelerate innovation and business growth around solutions to coastal communities’ resilience challenges. RISE leverages local assets and global networks to enable businesses to develop, demonstrate and scale innovations that help coastal communities adapt to changing climate.
Why Hampton Roads, VA?
Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia is a globally critical region. Home to the largest concentration of U.S. defense facilities in the world, including world’s largest naval base, and the third largest commercial port on the East Coast, the region is a hub for trade and a security nexus for the world. A combination of the region’s cities’ diverse typologies, climate change challenges and assets make Hampton Roads a perfect resilience innovation hub for entrepreneurs.
Beachfront
Urban Waterfront
Historic Properties
Infrastructure
Agriculture
Navy Bases
Suburbs
Hub Port
2018 Winners
Meet six winners of the 2018 $2M Coastal Community Resilience Challenges
Building Resilient Solutions
Reducing flood-damage through alternative retrofit methods for existing buildings.
Constructis
Harnessing kinetic energy from traffic to power emergency services.
InfraSGA
Reducing nuisance flooding in constrained urban environment without massive infrastructure overhauls.
Grow Oyster Reefs
Reducing shoreline erosion and flooding with innovative reef tiles that attract oysters faster than competitor solutions.
Landscape Resilience Partnership
Training resilience workforce to design, install and maintain flood-reducing solutions.
Resilience Enterprise Solutions
Raising the bar for workforce training in the home raising industry.
2019 RISE Coastal Community Resilience Challenges
The Challenges seek innovative products and approaches that enhance resilience of coastal communities, create substantial new value, can be demonstrated in the Hampton Roads region of Southeastern Virginia, are scalable to other communities, and can be built into sustainable businesses.
RISE provides the following services to the winning teams:
Resilience Innovation Fund (non-equity, non-dilutive)
Resilience Innovation Accelerator
Resilience Innovation Hub & Testbed
Real-world infrastructure & pilot sites
Co-working office space
Fabrication & testing work space
Datasets
Experts and stakeholders
Entrepreneurial community
Regulatory TA and permitting
PR and media visibility