Winners of the third wave of the GCIP Ukraine competition
The final of the third wave of the GCIP Ukraine competition of innovative environmentally friendly projects took place on June 3-4.
At the end of the three-week GCIP Ukraine Business Academy, which included interactive training sessions, practical cases, networking, meetings with mentors and individual consultations with leading business trainers and successful practices, participants of 21 startup teams presented their projects to the jury.
The event was held in a pitching format, ie each team had 10 minutes for the presentation of the project, and 5-6 minutes for a question and answer session from the jury members, which included representatives:
- Network for Global Innovation (NGIN, USA)
- International Green Technologies & Investments Cente (IGTIC, Kazakhstan)
- Ukraine-Denmark Energy Center
- State Finance Institution for Innovations (SFII)
- State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine
- Council for Attracting Investments at the Rivne Regional State Administration
- Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
For two days, they evaluated the pitches of 21 teams, looking for a balance between the innovativeness of the solution and its relevance, assessing the chances of the project to be implemented and business prospects waiting for the idea in six months or a year.
The results of the third wave of Acceleration
National winner of the third wave of the GCIP Ukraine Acceleration Program
The RE-leaf PAPER project, in its early stages, was just a school idea for a rural school student who wanted to show his scientific abilities to the whole of Ukraine, and possibly to the whole world.
As a member of the Small Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and having the opportunity to work in the school chemical laboratory, together with his teacher he created a technology for highly productive production of cellulose from fallen leaves as a material for paper production.
So far, the project team has managed to develop a method of processing fallen leaves with a final fiber yield of 48%. The uniqueness of the project lies in the use of thermal and mechanical methods of processing raw materials in a slightly alkaline environment, resulting in the most intact fiber suitable for conversion into paper. This method consumes 15 times less water than paper production, reduces CO2 emissions by 78.32%, and most importantly: 2.3 tons of leaves are used per 1 ton of paper, instead of 17 trees.
Nomination “Creative Approach to the Problem of Rational Use of Resources”
7 GRAM – eco-insoles for shoes made of disposed cups and coffee. Unique patented technology 7 GRAM is a technology based on the processing of disposable coffee cups and coffee. Cellulose, which arises in due to processing disposable cups, has moisture-absorbing properties, as well as antifungal and antibacterial properties, which are achieved through hemp fabric and composite 7 GRAM.
Nomination “Women’s Leadership”
This year’s Women’s Leadership category was won by the Atmosphere project, an intelligent weather data processor that combines a computing server, its own weather network and third-party weather data. Areas where the system can be applied are diverse: from healthcare, transport to renewable energy sources and the agricultural sector. Currently, one of the tricks is weather forecasting and power generation for solar power plants.
To forecast the weather and power generation of solar power plants, Atmosphere collects meteorological data, SES indicators (telemetry, losses, etc.), historical data archives. All this information is analyzed using, in particular, computational neural network and predictive analytics. This will allow for the formation, regular updating and provision of appropriate forecasts and recommendations. The system will provide a local weather forecast and generation 24 hours ahead with hourly correction.
“Circular Economy” nomination
The winner in this nomination was the team of developers of unique technologies for the production of biodegradable food plastic from the starch of the original hybrid of high-amylose corn of own selection.
This technology allows to obtain biodegradable plastic from high amylose corn starch without the process of lactic acid fermentation and the formation of polylactide, which significantly shortens, reduces the cost and simplifies the process, which differs from the classic technology of plastic from starchy vegetable raw materials.
Nomination “Global Impact on the Development of the World Economy”
AgriEYE is an innovative system of satellite data analysis that allows you to understand all the characteristics of the field and evaluate it on all aggregate indicators. With the help of algorithms you can remove the asymmetry of information that hinders the innovative development of agribusiness: to understand the fertility of the field, its history for 20 years, suitability for growing certain crops, analyze the risks of suffocation and help avoid wasting resources.
This solution can be used in smart farming, resource management and sustainable agriculture. The technology is dynamic and flexible, which allows its use by different counterparties.
Nomination “Technological Breakthrough”
In the nomination “Technological breakthrough” two projects won:
Innovative welding technology for dissimilar metals, which allows you to weld metals with different melting points without prior alliteration. This technology has no analogues and reduces the cost of one meter of weld – up to 8 US dollars.
The converter of low-potential environmental energy into electricity is an innovative source of energy that has no analogues. This device works in strict compliance with the law of conservation of energy and is an elementary electric generator – a power source for which is the scattered energy of the environment.
Nomination “Waste Disposal Solutions”
The project on utilization of worn-out car tires is complete separation of tire components (rubber, metal cord, rubber-textile cord) in a high-frequency electromagnetic field.
The main advantage of the proposed method is that after dividing the treadmill of the tire by the device, all its components retain their physicochemical and mechanical properties. The latter allows to use recycled raw materials for their original purpose – to produce new tires, high-quality rubber products, composite compounds for road surfaces of European quality and more.
Nomination “Socio-Ecological Project”
PILLSMONSTER – web portal of “medical discount”, where pharmacies, manufacturers and distributors of drugs present their range of drugs whose shelf life expires (from 12 to 2 months). This platform allows the end consumer to get quality and much cheaper drugs at a discount, and also reduces the risk of environmental pollution during the disposal of unsold drugs.