We're excited to share that Alimentary Systems Limited (ASL) has been selected as one of the Top 100 Resilience Solution Providers in the 2026 QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge — a six-month global accelerator run by Leading Cities and powered by the QBE Foundation.

Out of hundreds of applications from over 70 countries, our Bio-Resource Recovery Plant (BRRP) technology was chosen for its potential to help communities build resilience through circular waste infrastructure. It's a recognition that what we're building at ASL isn't just relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand — it has global significance.

What is the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge?

The QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge is one of the world's leading GovTech accelerators — a partnership between QBE Insurance, one of the world's largest global insurers, and Leading Cities, a Boston-based non-profit that drives urban innovation through programmes connecting entrepreneurs with municipal governments.

Now in its fifth year, the Challenge is designed to help resilience-focused startups move from promising innovation to real-world deployment. It provides participants with structured learning on public-private partnerships, direct engagement with city leaders, mentorship from global industry experts, and pathways toward funded pilot projects with communities.

The programme's grand prize winner receives US$100,000 to fund a city pilot project, deployed through AcceliGOV — Leading Cities' municipal implementation platform developed in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative. AcceliGOV enables cities to launch proven climate and infrastructure solutions in approximately 90 days, replacing what typically takes 18–24 months through a traditional procurement process.

About QBE and Leading Cities

QBE Insurance Group is an international insurer and reinsurer with a local presence in 27 countries. Through the QBE Foundation, QBE has demonstrated a deep commitment to building resilient communities — funding innovation that addresses climate risk, infrastructure vulnerability, and social equity at the urban level.

Leading Cities, founded in 2008, has grown from a research organisation at Northeastern University into a global force for urban innovation. Its programmes span the entire innovation lifecycle — from sourcing and vetting solutions through to stakeholder education, implementation funding, and deployment support. Through AcceliCITY and AcceliGOV, Leading Cities has connected hundreds of startups with municipal governments, reducing the barriers that typically stall innovation adoption in the public sector.

Our First Week: Orientation and Mindset

This past week, the ASL team attended the programme's first orientation sessions — a combination of programme orientation, technical onboarding, and an introduction to the cohort community through Leading Cities' virtual LaunchPad 11 platform.

The sessions set the tone perfectly. We received a clear picture of the competition structure, the six-month curriculum, and what's expected of participants. We also began working through the Public-Private Partnership Readiness certification — a web-based programme designed to help innovators navigate public procurement, build strategic partnerships, and refine their pitch for government audiences.

That insight resonates deeply with our mission. At ASL, we've spent years developing technology that transforms how communities manage their organic waste and wastewater — not by incremental improvement, but through a fundamentally different approach modelled on natural biological systems. The real challenge has never been competing with other solutions. It's been shifting the conversation away from "we've always done it this way" toward something genuinely transformative.

Why This Matters for ASL

The AcceliCITY programme arrives at a pivotal moment for our company. With a commercial Bio-Resource Recovery Plant operating at Bell Island in Nelson, a 100 TPD facility in development at Porirua in partnership with Ngāti Toa Rangatira, and further projects in our pipeline, we're ready to scale. What AcceliCITY provides is something capital alone cannot buy: structured access to city leaders, a framework for navigating government procurement, and a global peer network of organisations solving similar challenges.

The programme also complements our existing trajectory. As the GSA Oceania Regional Winner for Best Greentech Startup, and as a company backed by New Zealand's Waste Minimisation Fund, we've built strong foundations domestically. AcceliCITY opens the door to international deployment pathways — connecting our team to a network of over 60,000 cities worldwide.

What Comes Next

Over the coming months, the ASL team will be working through the AcceliCITY curriculum, engaging with fellow cohort members from around the world, and sharpening how we communicate the value of circular waste infrastructure to city leaders. We'll also be participating in monthly City Solutions Forums — direct engagement opportunities with municipal decision-makers looking for deployable solutions.

We're genuinely excited by this opportunity. The chance to learn alongside some of the world's most innovative resilience-focused companies, to refine our approach to government engagement, and to position our technology for global deployment is exactly what we've been working toward.

This is more than a competition. It's a deployment pathway — and we intend to make the most of it.

We'll be sharing updates throughout the programme. Follow along as we take our circular waste-to-resource technology to the world stage.

Ngā mihi,
The Alimentary Systems Team