Webinars
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 1
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 2
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 3
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 4
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 5
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 6
Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture Webinar 7
FAQs
The challenge is about identifying and rewarding innovations which create practical water-saving technologies. We are interested in solutions that can be deployed in the United Arab Emirates to reduce water consumption in agriculture while maintaining crop yields.
The challenge is hosted by the Mohamed Bin Zayed Water Initiative. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing global water scarcity. They enable breakthrough technologies, raise the importance of water scarcity on the international agenda, and deploy needed water solutions to benefit people and communities around the world. In the longer term, they seek to help create a world in which water is accessible, affordable, and sustainable for all.
Participants will gain international visibility, and the most promising innovators will have access to a $2M USD prize pool and the opportunity to pilot their solutions in the UAE.
Please use the website at almiyahchallenge.aspireuae.ae to register.
If you have any questions or technical difficulties, you can email us at waterchallenge@aspireuae.ae.
Participants must submit a proposal by June 30th, 2025 to be eligible.
Selected participants will be asked to pitch their solutions to a panel of judges, allow the judges to visit their facilities to see their solution in action, and finally, will be asked to conduct a pilot of their solution in the UAE. The final winners will be announced in December 2026.
We are interested in solutions across a variety of technology areas which reduce water consumption in agriculture while maintaining or improving crop yield. We are seeking solutions in two major areas:
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Improving sustainable irrigation practices and reducing overall water consumption,
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Optimizing controlled environment agriculture designs for greenhouses and net houses, including water use for cooling.
Eligible solutions may provide an alternate water supply, reduce water consumption, improve cost and energy efficiency for water treatment, enhance the soil, or modify crops.
We are looking for a general understanding of your solution both from a technical and deployment standpoint.
We want to understand clearly what you are proposing, and how well you plan to deploy and scale it.
We have a set of standard questions we will ask you to answer, including things like explaining your technology or methodology, explaining how it is innovative and different, explaining the cost of implementing your solution at various scales, and explaining your plan to develop and commercialize your solution in the UAE. If you are interested in seeing all the questions, you can register at almiyahchallenge.aspireuae.ae and see the proposal submission form.
Not necessarily. We understand that some questions may not apply to your solutions. However, the more complete you are, the better we evaluate your proposal better and will potentially identify your solution as a top entry.
A diverse team of experts with experience in water management and agriculture will evaluate your proposal in detail. They will be assessing:
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The cost-benefit ratio of your solution and its attractiveness to local farmers.
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The clarity, innovation, and ease of operation & maintenance of your solution.
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Your track record with achievements in research, development, and commercialization.
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The quality of your deployment and training plan to ensure adoption if your solution is addressing smallholders specifically.
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Any partnerships with universities, startups, or companies.
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And the overall sustainability, resilience, safety, reliability, and ease of maintenance of your solution.
We will notify participants who have been selected to proceed via email and phone.
No, not at this stage. If your proposal manages to pass through the first 3 phases and enter the list of Finalists, you will be required to do a pilot in the UAE. The amount and duration of travel or relocation required for this pilot will vary depending on each finalist’s solution. Finalists will need to commit time and resources to pilot their solution such that judges can evaluate its success. Some financial assistance will be provided, and the details will be determined once Finalists have been selected.
Participants will have ownership of any IP they bring to or develop for the challenge. If your proposal is selected to proceed, the formal legal details surrounding IP ownership will be outlined in a signed competitor agreement.
We can’t answer questions about the rules or technical aspects of the challenge at this time, but there will be a Q&A or webinar where participants can ask questions like that and get formal rulings from our expert judges and advisors.
The challenge is open to all nations/nationalities.
In the final stage, when the finalists are invited to the UAE to develop their pilot program, financial assistance will be provided to support pilot testing. The details of this assistance will be determined later based on the capabilities and requirements of the finalists.
Farming facilities for pilot testing will be provided by Silal at their Innovation Oasis (Silal Innovation Oasis - State-of-the-Art R&D Center ) in the UAE.
The challenge does not provide further investment at this time but will work to connect finalists with local partners to help them commercialize/rollout their solution. This may include investment or follow-up opportunities, but the specifics will be determined based on the capabilities of the finalists and the interests of local partners.
Not for this particular challenge. The Al Miyah Challenge for Agriculture is focused on accelerating technological innovations to reduce water use in agriculture. Solutions primarily based on behaviour modification, public education, or public policy/regulatory solutions are not eligible for this challenge. If you have a non-technological solution and wish to partner with the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative on projects outside of the Al Miyah Challenge, please reach out using the contact section on the website (Contact Us | The Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative).
No. Solutions are eligible as long as they reduce the consumption of water in agriculture while maintaining or improving crop yield and meet one or both of the problem statements. The challenge is open to innovative technologies in any of the following categories:
- Alternative water supplies
- Water consumption reduction technologies for outdoor or indoor farming, including cooling
- Cost and energy efficient water quality treatments to make groundwater fit for farming, including but not limited to desalination
- Soil enhancement or crop modification technologies to reduce water uptake
- Circular solutions encompassing two or more of the above components
We understand that many solutions are still in development, and that therefore not all the information is available. We also understand that some questions may not apply to your particular solution.
If a question does not apply to your solution, provide a simple explanation as to why the question does not apply to your solution.
Please provide as much information as you can at this stage in order for our evaluators to make an informed and well-rounded decision about your solution.
All proposals will be read and evaluated holistically, and no proposals will be automatically discarded or filtered out.
Please indicate in your written answers that your solution addresses both problem statements. Proposals addressing both problem statements are allowed.
There will be one winner selected from the pool of 4-5 finalists. That winner will receive a $1M USD prize. The remaining prize purse will be distributed to the other finalists in a manner that is yet to be determined.
Yes. In the final phase, finalists will be required to pilot their solution in the UAE.
The pilot testing will begin between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026.
The finalists will be required to set-up and operate their pilot solution for a period ranging from 3-9 months, depending on the solution and crop chosen for pilot testing.
The teams need not stay in UAE continuously during the entire pilot testing period but will need to ensure sufficient presence for effective and successful pilot testing. This will be decided on case-by-case basis once the finalist teams are chosen.
Smallholder farmers typically have farms between 3 and 6 hectares. Farms of this size are very common in the UAE, and many of the farmers are recreational farmers rather than large-scale industrial farmers.
No. The deadline is fixed on June 30th , 2025, for proposal submission. It is important to give the finalists enough time in the UAE during the cooler months to complete their testing. To ensure this, we must identify the finalists through several stages of evaluation before Q4 2025. To meet this timeline, the initial proposals must be submitted by June 30th, 2025.
Participants will be evaluated based on how much water is needed to grow certain crops with and without their solution. If their solution is able to reduce the quantity of water required to grow a crop while maintaining or improving crop yield, crop quality, and environmental sustainability at a reasonable cost, they will meet the requirement for success in the challenge.
Yes. Winning awards or engaging in successful partnerships that is relevant to your solution improves the credibility of your proposal and will increase your chances of receiving a higher score during evaluation.
Yes, that is allowed and encouraged. We are currently developing our approach to team matchmaking/partnership and will give teams additional guidance soon on how they can best partner.
Yes. Provided there is no conflict of interest with any of the challenge partners – Mohamed Bin Zayed Water Initiative (MBZWI), ASPIRE, Silal, and ADAFSA. If you are concerned or unsure about a possible conflict of interest, please contact us at almiyahchallenge@aspireuae.ae.
Yes, individuals are welcome to participate. Anyone with an innovative solution meeting the criteria is encouraged to submit a proposal.
Please email us at almiyahchallenge@aspireuae.ae
Yes, the pitches will be held virtually to offer scheduling flexibility to the participating teams and evaluators.
The site visits will happen between September and October 2025, but the specific day and time will be coordinated with the team being visited.
Teaming will be available for interested participants throughout the challenge. Interested teams should email almiyahchallenge@aspireuae.ae with the following information:
- Name of the Team of Individual
- Contact Details
- Optional: Details of the expertise you have and offer.
- Optional: Details of the expertise you are seeking.
- Optional: Additional information / website
Expertise can include:
- technical know-how (e.g., data analytics, crop modelling)
- specialized equipment (e.g., irrigation systems, sensors)
- local deployment capabilities.
This information will be published shortly after receiving it on the Al Miyah website, where interested teams can browse through the submitted teaming requests and get in contact with the teams that have shared their information.
Teams are always welcome to contact us via almiyahchallenge@aspireuae.ae for any concerns or questions. We cannot, however, use additional information beyond the submission form content in our evaluations out of fairness to the other teams. In case teams wish to adjust their submission, they can always submit a new proposal. We will evaluate the last submitted proposal per team
We definitely want to hear about publications that support your solution and credibility. There is a section in the submission for dedicated to this, where teams should add references to their publications rather than uploading them.
Any adaptations need to be communicated to the Al Miyah Challenge team. While we welcome continuous improvements on existing solutions, adaptations will be assessed on a case-by-case basis to ensure these do not render previous evaluations invalid.
The prize will be handed over shortly after the public announcement of the winning teams.
The prize will be handed over shortly after the public announcement of the winning teams.