# We've Made the Top 50 in QBE's AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge | Emission Free Generators 

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- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:372630
- Published at: 2026-08-21 17:45:33 UTC
- Updated at: 2026-09-09 15:47:31 UTC

## Author
Mark Collins

## Subject
Emission Free Generators 

## Content
Hi everyone,We have fantastic news to share! Emission Free Generators has been selected for the Top 50 in the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge, a six-month global accelerator powered by Leading Cities and the QBE Foundation. This year's program drew more than 960 applications from 77 countries, vetted by a panel of over 200 global judges, and Leading Cities describes it as the largest startup accelerator of its kind. Being named to the Top 50 out of that pool is a real distinction on its own.To get here, we centered our pitch on a gap most cities have come to expect. Every year, millions of Americans lose electricity during emergencies and the most vulnerable residents are the ones who pay the highest price.Every city has residents who depend on oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, home dialysis, or refrigerated medication every day. When the grid goes down, the tools a city actually has to help this population are limited: open a shelter, check on residents, encourage evacuation. None of those options gets safe power directly to someone who needs to stay in their own home.Our pitch laid out a three-step model for closing that gap: a city or utility provides a ZenH2 unit to a medically vulnerable resident, or the resident already has one pre-positioned; the resident inserts an energy cartridge and has immediate indoor-safe backup power, no gasoline, propane, or outdoor operation required; and the community benefits from residents safely remaining in their homes instead of straining shelters and emergency services during an outage.The PrizeThe program's grand prize is $100,000, part of which goes toward funding a real-world city pilot for whichever solution wins. Our proposed plan, if we're selected, starts small and deliberate: an initial deployment of ZenH2 units to medically vulnerable residents in partnership with a city and local utility, alongside training for first responders and community organizations and the groundwork for ongoing cartridge logistics. From there, the goal is a program a city can point to and expand.Advancing this far also connects us to Leading Cities' broader network, which spans more than 15,000 cities globally through partnerships including the Clinton Global Initiative.The next step is SmartUp Week in early September, three one-on-one sessions with an assigned evaluator, part mentorship and part judging on the impact, quality, and feasibility of the proposal.We're looking forward to it, and humbled by the opportunity to be considered for a pilot like this in a city that needs it.— Mark