Event
Wageningen Impact Expo
On Wednesday 28 August 2024 the Wageningen Impact Expo takes place, organised by Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and supported by University Fund Wageningen. This event showcases and celebrates more than 20 years of entrepreneurship and societal impact by WUR and its partners.
Programme outline
| 13.00 | Welcome |
| 13.10 | Key note by Thijs Verheul, founder of United Wardrobe, eventually sold to Vinted |
| 13.30 | Feedforward mini breakouts & entrepreneurial story sessions |
| 14.30 | Announcement Precubation initiative by WUR, supported by University Fund Wageniningen |
| 15.00 | Feedforward mini breakouts & entrepreneurial story sessions |
| 16.00 | Award ceremony |
| 16.30 | Mix&mingle, drinks and bites |
| 18.00 | Closing |
During this event, you will:
- Discover the innovative solutions developed by our entrepreneurs and experience their impact firsthand.
- Learn about the support and tools that WUR, University Fund Wageningen, and our partners provide to foster entrepreneurship and innovation.
- Find out how you can be part of our collective mission to drive entrepreneurship and create solutions that work.
We look forward to welcoming you to this inspiring event. We aim to shape the future of entrepreneurship and innovation together, within and beyond WUR.
Showcases
1. Wasteboek
With a team of students, Wastebook wants to support food companies to manage their waste, digitally, with a smart e-waste collection box to monitor and manage waste. Their mission is to revolutionize the waste management industry by prioritizing resource maximization, purifying waste streams and ensure the best distribution towards current treatment technologies.
Through collection companies, waste data is shared, enabling users to manage their waste efficiently. Waste should not end up in a landfill but should be re-used as much as possible.
2. Afropulse
Rethinking Africa's role aims to provoke a paradigm shift in how Africa is perceived and engaged with, bridging cultures and continents by empowering local entrepreneurs. Elisabeth Obeings’ Afropulse, seeks to challenge the status quo and empower African partners to lead the way in research, development, and business creation, achieving more balanced and sustainable food systems.
As mediators between continents and cultures, they connect Africa and Europe while partnering with businesses to drive meaningful change. The follow-up on the business idea has already commenced.
3. Green Dilligence
Green Diligence is an AI-driven platform, accelerating the European Green Deal transition by promoting sustainable development in local communities.
Green Diligence offers consultancy and simplifies sustainability reporting and green finance for SMEs in complying with EU sustainability regulations and reporting standards. The platform helps SMEs who want to measure, report, and improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.
Green Diligence also enables access to green finance for sustainability improvements, by simplifying grant and subsidy applications, and connecting well performing SMEs to ESG-based private investments.
The founder, Lyobomir Spasov, always had an interest in environmental issues and is passionate to offer support to all SME’s, hopefully fully operational by the summer of 2025.
4. Afterlife
Afterlife is a start-up aiming to revolutionize global food systems by converting waste into valuable resources through innovative fungal fermentation technology. Addressing current food system inefficiencies and the growing demand for eco-friendly protein sources, Afterlife transforms large volumes of food industry leftovers into versatile, neutral, and functional protein ingredients suitable for meat replacers and other applications. Their ground-breaking work earned them the Rethink Waste Challenge 2023 and the Dutch 4TU Impact Challenge 2023.
5. SoualiGas
St. Maarten garbage dump is a dangerous eyesore, and the toxic mess frequently catches fire, polluting the air and shutting the businesses & schools. The health of the island’s biodiversity and economy is currently at great risk because of the large amount of plastic waste pollution.
SoualiGas aims to empower Small Island Developing States (SIDS) by transforming waste into resources through Advanced Thermochemical Conversion, a process that breaks down solid materials into valuable products. This technology offers numerous benefits, including energy production, reduced environmental impact, high efficiency, resource recovery, near-complete waste volume reduction, reduced dependence on fossil fuels, versatility, adaptability, scalability, and a small footprint.
By converting waste streams into valuable resources, SoualiGas helps SIDS become more resilient to climate change, more future-proof amid global instability, and more autonomous, thus empowering local communities and restoring their natural beauty.
6. Hippotainer
Hippotainer is a Container Vertical Farm in a 40ft freight container with a Deep Water Culture (DWC) hydroponics system. This makes it possible to grow a variety of plants with the Hippotainer, like microgreens, lettuce, herbs etc. The Hippotainer carefully controls the environmental conditions for optimal plant growth, allowing cultivation at any time, in any location, and in any weather.
A pilot project is running in Ukrainegrowing vegetables and providing jobs for local refugees in partnership with Rijk Zwaan, Signify, Grow Foam and many more.
7. ValueSort.AI
ValueSort.AI enables decision makers to develop highly-scalable vision AI for the entire value chain, transforming the traditional processes with more customization, automation and increased efficiency.
“ValueSort.AI enables sorters to identify high-value items with AI visual recognitions, removing the challenge of sourcing on-demand quality second-hand textiles, sorters can surpass traditional methods that focus on weight, allowing textile sorters to capitalize on the second-hand textile market’s growth. ValueSort’s technology can assist humans, reducing costs in training humans and increasing revenue”, according to Bart van Gorcum, founder of valueSort.AI.
8. Maxairea, better air indoors
Maxairea has a smart ventilation technology that reduces ventilation needs by 50%.
Currently, Maxairea is working on a pilot project at WUR to integrate its CO2 filtration technology into an existing HVAC system. Founder Rabih Hamid is very excited about the pilot project:
“Maxairea is my third company, and my background in engineering and ten years in construction has significantly shaped my entrepreneurial journey. The inflation crisis in Lebanon motivated me to find solutions for growing food affordably without relying on fertilizers or pesticides, which led to the start of Maxairea in 2020. My work has focused on the physics of building management and plant growth, and my thesis on fibers with hemp and insulating products further solidified my expertise”.
9. Convivial conservation center
Convivial (literally: ‘living with’) conservation offers a new and integrated approach to understanding and practicing environmental conservation. It is a Whole Earth vision that responds to the major ecological, social and political-economic challenges facing people and biodiversity in the 21st century. Several research projects are ongoing to learn from their practices and to support them by providing a vision that unites different struggles in pursuit of a socially and ecologically just conservation. The idea is to build on promising examples to develop a general conservation model embodying more convivial principles both within these sites and elsewhere.
Bram Buscher, Professor Sociology of Development and change: “Convivial conservation offers an alternative to dominant approaches to biodiversity conservation, grounded in 10 central principles. Together these make up our manifesto intended to help guide activity in pursuit of convivial conservation in policy discussions and diverse local spaces”.
10. Insectsense
InsectSense is exploring the potential of insects through biomimicry to develop innovative solutions.
By mimicking the highly accurate sensing mechanisms of insects, InsectSense creates devices for disease diagnostics and the detection of volatile organic compounds in various fields, including environmental monitoring, food safety, and security. Their products include BeeSense, a cost-effective device that trains bees to detect volatile compounds, and LumiNose, a deep-tech platform powered by AI to detect health and flavor-related molecules. Both aim to provide objective measurements and rapid, cost-effective solutions. InsectSense also offers ReceptomiX, a biochip technology similar to LumiNose, with broader applications for lab testing in the food industry.
The company’s mission is to develop accessible, cost-effective diagnostic solutions, particularly for low-income countries.
11. Zwamcijsje
Zwamcijsje promotes less waste and more local ingredients with the full flavor and satisfaction of the classic pastry roll. Zwamcijsje introduces the first vegan pastry roll filled with circular home-grown mushrooms being 100% vegan, grown without pesticides, being soy free, containing less saturated fat, with a fine structure and familiar savory taste.
By using local and sustainable ingredients and collaborating with expert supply chain partners, Zwamcijsje makes a substantial contribution to a circular food chain.
12. Greencovery
Greencovery upcycles ingredients that are tasty and good for people and the planet.
They are on a mission to reduce food waste and make upcycled ingredients the norm in the food industry. At Greencovery, food will be upcycled that otherwise would be wasted, extracting high-quality, safe, and environmentally friendly ingredients that retain their natural functionality. In this way Greencovery enables leading food companies to produce sustainable ingredients from production side-streams, enhancing productivity, reducing waste, and lowering carbon emissions. Greencovery accelerates the time-to-market for new, sustainable ingredients, aligning with SDG-12, SDG-2, and SDG-9.
13. Algreen
Algreen offers service starting from proprietary collection of microalgae to the production plant; Algeen is able to work with different culture techniques, such as open ponds and tubular photobioreactor Supporting the customer by designing a new process from scratch R&D lab scale processes or working on the optimisation of an established process.
Algreen is working to optimize and scale up galdieria’s biomass production. Galdieria, like spirulina, can be used as superfood. However, it is cheaper, easier to grow and even more nutritious a it can convert organic waste into valuable proteins. Galderia has great potential to help improve human health, encourage a transition to a more plant-based diet, reduce energy use, making good use of organic waste.
14. No Fairytales
No Fairytales Wraps are innovative, health-conscious tortillas made from vegetables, designed to provide a nutritious and delicious alternative to traditional wraps. By incorporating a significant percentage of vegetables like carrots and beets, these wraps offer enhanced nutritional value, including higher fiber content and essential vitamins, while maintaining a low-calorie profile. Perfect for health-focused consumers, No Fairytales makes it easy to increase daily vegetable intake without compromising on taste or convenience, supporting a balanced diet and a sustainable lifestyle.
15. SOLYNTA
Solynta aims to have a positive impact on the growing need for robust, new potato varieties among farmers all over the world. Solynta is the first to successfully breed hybrid potatoes from true seeds. The innovative hybrid potato breeding technology creates sustainable solutions for global challenges. By collaborating with partners worldwide and applying a ground breaking technology we create long-lasting impact on the global food supply.
Super-Mendelian micro factories
Super-Mendelian micro factories represent a cutting-edge intersection of genetics, synthetic biology, and biotechnology, offering revolutionary potential for various industries. Their ability to propagate desired traits rapidly and efficiently could transform production systems, though careful consideration of ethical, ecological, and regulatory aspects is essential for their responsible deployment. There are regulatory challenges in approving and overseeing the use of gene drives and other advanced genetic engineering techniques and acceptance of these technologies by the public and stakeholders is crucial.
Photo: Winners Finale Entrepreneurship Grant, team BrewRight and team MoVax with finalists and jury members. Photo credits - Guy Ackermans.