Aeroplane that generates energy, grain sorting with AI and bioreactors made from recycled plastic win national ClimateLaunchpad awards
Aeroplane that generates energy, grain sorting with AI and bioreactors made from recycled plastic win national ClimateLaunchpad awards
The three national ClimateLaunchpad winners will represent Portugal in the regional final of the competition. In Portugal, the competition is organised by UPTEC, Ordem dos Engenheiros—Região Norte, and Fórum Oceano/Hub Azul.
---------------------- UPWIND
An aerial device for electricity production based on wind energy (UPWIND), a solution that validates cereal characterisation information via large-scale online biomolecular and biophysical analyses (Seedsight) and bioreactors produced in modular 3D printers using biomaterials or recycled plastic filaments (DAM – ChainReactor). These are the three winners of the national final of ClimateLaunchPad 2024, the world’s largest cleantech competition organised in Portugal by UPTEC – Porto Science and Technology Park, the Ordem dos Engenheiros – Região Norte (OERN) and Fórum Oceano/Hub Azul.
The three national ClimateLaunchpad winners will represent Portugal in the regional final of the competition, enjoy free four-month incubation at UPTEC, and receive mentoring, training, and other prizes awarded by the programme’s partners, valued at 10,000 euros.
UPWIND, ranked first, has a portable generator for electricity production based on wind energy, which consists of an aerial device connected to a ground station via a cable. This ecological alternative doesn’t require refuelling and has great cost savings (around 83% reduction).
Seedsight, second place and recently included in Nature magazine’s top 11 worldwide, has a platform capable of validating cereal characterisation information via low-cost online biomolecular and biophysical analyses on a large scale, using blockchain, deep learning, AI and optical sensor technologies.
The third-place winner, DAM—ChainReactor, uses renewable energy to power modular 3D printers that use biomaterials or recycled plastic filaments to print high-quality, economical, and customisable bioreactors.
Also competing in this competition for solutions that reduce the negative impact on the environment were Farm Akademy – an agricultural literacy programme that aims to have a direct impact on young students living in rural municipalities – PhosTech – the production of struvite, a sustainable fertiliser from agro-industrial effluents, with the possibility of soil testing services, effluent characterisation, or the production of oxygenated water for irrigation -, and Susplus – a system that collects and organises data for the sustainability of the operations and products of SMEs in the fashion category, to comply with the European Union’s Directive on sustainability and ESG reporting.
ClimateLaunchpad has already supported more than 80 teams
Since the competition began in 2014, almost 15,000 business ideas from 60 countries worldwide have applied to ClimateLaunchpad. The 5,000 “green” companies that have passed the programme have received more than 500 million euros in external investment. Running in Portugal since 2016, the programme has received more than 150 applications and supported more than 80 teams and more than 150 participants. Portugal also has three international winners – Pavnext, Eco2blocks and Mudatuga, and Windcredible and Build.ing, which both reached the regional final.
July 3, 2024