Startup Europe Awards

Tag: Water

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México StartUp Europe Awards: “Creating open innovative environments for the Mexican agro-food industry”

  • The Project falls within the StartUp Europe Awards, an initiative with which the European Comission -DG Connect- and the Finnova Foundation aim to promote local entrepreneurship and open innovation.
  • This initiative, open and inclusive, will promote a public collaboration – private for the UE-Mexican agro-food industry.
  • CDI Corporative will promote the participation of new companies with innovative projects dealing with the Aggrotech, Social Innovation, Water, Climate and Gastronomic fields.
  • The official announcement regarding the Water category, in the framework of the National Forum of Sustainable Development and Water, is released in Mazatlán, Sinaloa.

Mexico, 31 August 2018. Mexico StartUp Europe Awards is an initiative in which the European Commission –DG CONNECT- and the Finnova Foundation, in collaboration with CDI Corporative (Corporativo de Desarrollo Integral) aiming to promote local entrepreneurship and open innovation for the UE-Mexican agro-food industry.

Mexico occupies the eleventh position in the world in regards with exportation and the tenth position as a food producer; with this in mind, the incorporation of Mexico to new digital technologies, modernisation of business models and decision-making in order to increase its competitiveness on an international scale is a must.
There is evidence of important advances around entrepreneurship in Mexico, however, the agro-food industry requires greater efforts in order to create an environment of emergent new technologies, innovations and agro-technologic businesses.

“Mexico has an important potential in terms of Start-ups, as the conditions to accelerate the growth of this field by generating innovations and an entrepreneurship environment are already there; with this initiative we are looking for a coalition with key actors that can help to boost and reinforce an interinstitutional link with public inversions within the agro-food industry”, according to Marco Antonio Herrera Oropeza, General director of CDI.

The Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey has joined this initiative by considering its relevance as an enhancer of development in a field that is as fundamental for the Mexican economy as the agro-food industry. The Business School of this university strongly emphasizes the entrepreneurial culture and the connection between universities and companies as an instrument to promote economic and social development of all countries.
The Finnova Foundation facilitates the collaboration between Mexican and European entities thanks to European Funds in order to technologically innovate, particularly the aggrotech sector, which is strategic for Mexico and, at the same time, it has a great commercial importance for the European Union.

“StartUp Europe Awards is the vehicle allowing Start-ups, corporates and the public administration to deal with the challenges that may arise from the development of the programme Horizonte Europa, counting on 100 trillions for innovation until 2027, and Mexico should be a leader country in obtaining this subvention in cooperation with Europe” states Juan Manuel Revuelta, General Director of Finnova Foundation.

CDI Corporative will implement the participation of new companies participating in innovative projects within the categories of Aggrotech, Social Innovation, Water, Climate and Gastronomy, so their services and products can be known at a global level.

“We want this entrepreneurial environment to find and initiate business ideas and inversions so that producers can reach these innovations with the help of all the actors”, confirmed Marco Antonio Herrera Oropeza, General Director of CDI.

Among the challenges that can be overcome with the help of the Start-ups are the improvement of the product chains, the valorisation of waste material, the reutilisation of water, the improvement of the food quality, the impact of the climate change, the renewable energies and the implementation of continuous and inclusive innovation culture.

Within the National Forum of Sustainable Development and Water: Production, Promotion and Commercialisation of Agricultural Products, the first convocation of the contest in the Water category has been launched and can be now applied through the following link: http://startupeuropeawardsmexico.org/

“StartUp Europe Awards also aims to promote business cooperation as a result of the free trade agreement negotiated between the European Union and Mexico, which introduces the possibility of accessing a market with more than 740 million people in Europe and 133 millions of Mexicans. At a geostrategic level, globalisation switches from a concentric model revolving around the United States to a new cooperation point such as the European Union – Latam, Finnova Foundation’s bet since 2010”, confirms Juan Manuel Revuelta, General Director of Finnova.

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About CDI Corporative: a holding with more than 10 years of experience in the agro-food industry which offers integral solutions for the public and private sectors. Its recent participation was focused on the strategic design of the Planeación Agrícola Nacional 2017 – 2030.
About Finnova: a European Foundation with head offices in Belgium, Spain, Romania, Panama, Chile and Mexico. Promoter of innovative initiatives and platform for public and private entities headed towards the creation of innovative environments and the boost of Start-ups, relying on the supporting tools offered by the European Union.

For further information:
www.cdicorporativo.com.mx
www.finnova.eu
http://startupeuropeawards.eu/
http://startupeuropeclub.eu
@StartUpAwardsMX

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The Green and Water final of the SEUA has been held in the Berlaymont Building

On July 24th at 11:00 a.m. the final of the Green and Water categories of the StartUp Europe Awards (SEUA) was held at the Berlaymont Building located in Brussels. The event was attended by Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, who handed over the prizes to Biomyc and Enova named as winners by the appointed expert members of the jury. Both startups happened to be from Bulgaria and were selected through the Country Manager of the country, Cleantech.

Furthermore, the ceremony was attended by the CEO of Finnova, Juan Manuel Revuelta, who talked about the relevance of the environment and the possibilities of funding for Startups within the European Union. “It is of paramount importance to boost entrepreneurship and private-public partnerships between startups and public administrations and there are European funding tools that serve that purpose” pointed out Juan Manuel.

StartUp Europe Awards (SEUA) is an initiative implemented by the Finnova Foundation, promoted by the European Commission and supported by the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, and the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, within the framework of the Startup Europe programme. These awards seek to identify and recognise startups in Europe who are concerned with developing the values of entrepreneurship and innovation, including the promotion of respect for the environment.

The Green category aims at recognising startups offering products, services or methodologies addressing different topics like improved resource efficiency, climate change, low carbon economy or societal challenges among others. The award represents Finnova’s and the European’s Union compromise with the preservation and protection of the environment for present and future generations. The winner for this category was BIOMYC a Bulgarian startup which is developing an economically viable, fully biodegradable composite material made of agricultural waste as feedstock and mushroom mycelium as a binding agent.

On the other hand, the Water category aims at recognising startups working in the implementatio

n of various matters like water sustainable systems, coordination to public participation, chemical pollution or groundwater among others. This category responds to the importance of water itself. Water is the source of live and life itself.  It is a precondition for human, animal and plant life, an indispensable resource for the economy and a fundamental piece in the climate regulation cycle. Therefore, protecting our water resources, such as fresh or salt water or the water we drink and bathe in is one of the pillars of environmental protection in Europe. The winner for this category was also a Bulgarian startup called Enova. This startup has designed a BOD monitoring system based on a new generation of biosensor capable of detecting and quantifying the organic pollution in water.

You can re-view the event here, to see the pictures of the ceremony please click here.

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Weteq is the Luxemburg winner for the Water category

Country: Luxembourg

Category: Water

Project Aim: Fresh water consumption is steadily increasing and water scarcity effects more and more regions globally. Moreover, wastewater generated by industries presents a major global environmental concern. There is, therefore, a severe and growing demand for improved and more efficient wastewater treatment technologies.

What does Weteq do?

Weteq was created to help industries that use large volumes of fresh water to use it more efficiently. Weteq provides customized chemical-based solutions that help these industries to re-use wastewater in the industrial process, to comply with regulations by removing the contaminants, to increase the capacity of the wastewater installation, to increase environmental sustainability and to save costs.

What problems do Weteq solve?

The most common challenge of the industries is the compliance to continuously tightening water-related regulations and the desire to achieve self-initiated sustainability goals such as water preservation. Another challenge that we often observe is capacity constraints which can be mitigated by the optimization of the wastewater treatment process. Weteq’s tailor-made solutions help to overcome these challenges by the efficient removal of contaminants such as organic waste, color and heavy metals from waste water.

What did Weteq accomplished?

Weteq creates tailor-made solutions for customers with the best available technologies in the market. In addition, Weteq has developed proprietary solutions, which are patent-protected. In fact, Weteq is an R&D focused company and our goal is to underpin innovations and novel developments with IP. We believe that a strong portfolio of patents is key to our long-term success. We are currently reaching out to prospects and are seeking opportunities to apply our proprietary solutions to important industry challenges.

What does Europe represent for the company?

Europe is seen as the place where the industry applies innovative and high-quality products that help to use water in a sustainable way. As Europe is highly industrialized and developed, the success of Weteq in Europe can be extended to other regions. Value-generating projects are the key focus of our actions and we see Europe as our primary market for starters. So far, our prospective clients are in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, UK and Germany. We are also looking forward to expanding our coverage to other European countries and internationally in a focused manner.

“Winning this award proves that Weteq is on the right track as the European market is a very challenging market. Achieving this recognition will be an enabler for our marketing initiatives and our valued customers. It emphasizes that WETEQ seeks to make a humble but meaningful contribution towards a more sustainable world, with specific reference to water preservation”. Marc Hans