Wageningen is increasingly focusing on entrepreneurship to bring about innovation in agrifood and come up with inspiring ideas for climate-resilient and sustainable food systems. To stimulate young (student) entrepreneurs to develop their ideas, several entrepreneurship grants have been established in recent years through the University Fund Wageningen. At F&A Next, you will hear all about two awards: the AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant and the Feike Sijbesma Sustainable Innovation Award.
AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant
The AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant (AIEG) supports student-entrepreneurs with impactful ideas. Two grants are awarded yearly: the Impact Award for ideas with maximum sustainable impact, and the Start-Up Award for commercially promising ideas. At F&A Next, Marcel van Poecke, renowned entrepreneur, WUR-alumnus and founder of the AtlasInvest Entrepreneurship Grant 2022, will announce this year’s winners.
Nominees AIEG Start-up Award 2022
| | | Reshore believes the best infrastructure solutions involve the integration of nature to most effectively protect assets and lives as well as nature and all that is in it. LIVING Breakwater protects coastlines, restores ecosystems and contributes to economic opportunities for local stakeholders. Through LIVING Breakwater, restoration of key eco systems gets a chance again. A solution with immediate value to stakeholders that grows over time. |
| | | Luminose has a technology that can accurately and precisely detect VOCs and diagnose diseases in real-time! LumiNose can be used effectively in early diagnosis of chronic illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, & Parkinson’s, etc., and even novel diseases (such as Covid-19), but can also be used to detect diseases with animals or in plants. The Luminose technology can be a portable, non-invasive device. |
| | | PlantWizard is ready to innovate the indoor plant market by developing a tool that helps people to find their ideal plant in a quick and dynamic way. One click, a short survey you know what plant to buy for a particular space. Also, PlantWizard wants to create a community where reliable information will be shared regarding daily issues with plants, regarding edible plants and the environmental impact (edible) plants have. |
Nominees AIEG Impact Award 2022
| | | BeeGrateful introduced already the Bee&Bee, a Bed&Breakfast for bees that can be placed in gardens, balconies or terraces and provides nesting places for solitary bees. As they do not have to protect honey, they do not sting, but in fact do pollinate 75% of the crops used for food production! To increase impact and raise awareness of bee extinction, they now designed The Streetlight Bee&Bee for cities. |
| | | Urban Funghi, passionate about food, agriculture and environment, grows mushrooms in abandoned buildings in the city. They aim at three gains; to minimize land use for food production, minimize co2 emission by producing next to the end users and deliver fresh and highly qualitative mushrooms that still have their nutritional characteristics and texture when reaching the consumers’ homes and kitchens. |
Feike Sijbesma Sustainable Innovation Award
Royal DSM – through its Brighter Living Foundation – honors Feike Sijbesma, as former CEO of DSM, through initiating a Sustainable Innovation Award, supporting innovators and entrepreneurs in realizing their societal and environmental impact ambitions. In the spirit of Feike Sijbesma’s legacy, as successful CEO, global corporate leader and sustainability trailblazer, the award will stimulate innovators to scale their science-based solutions with a specific focus on sustainable climate resilient food systems.
The Award will be organized by DSM/DBLF in cooperation with Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and University Fund Wageningen (UFW), as the key knowledge organization in the domain of healthy food and living environment.
Solving global challenges from the heart of Food Valley
At F&A Next, Marcel van Poecke and Feike Sijbesma will share their views on how Wageningen is contributing to solving global challenges and how they are contributing personally. In this discussion they are joined by WUR-alumna Birgit Dekkers Phd, founder of foodtech startup Rival Foods, and Sebastiaan Berendse, director Corporate Value Creation at WUR.
Make sure not to miss it. If don’t have a ticket to F&A Next yet, secure your seat and get your ticket today!
