Brussels, 19 June 2020 | A total number of 33 speakers from Panama, Mexico, Greece, Belgium and Spain have participated in the opening session of the Accelerathon Waste-2-Energy. This informative webinar was held on Thursday, 18 June at 17:00 (CEST). It is the first digital open innovation competition on waste-to-energy celebrated in the framework of the Startup Europe.
During this first briefing, we had 44 registered participants who participated live from Spain, Colombia, Italy, Belgium and the United States. The webinar has been reproduced a total of 754 times through Facebook Live and shared 16 times through this platform. So far, it has reached more than 2,000 people.
After the opening webinar, the competition among the various multidisciplinary teams will start. They will rely on experts in LIFE from Finnova who will act as mentors and they will also have online training in LIFE projects. After the final, the selected winner will be eligible for a European acceleration ticket from the Startup Europe Accelerator that will let the team present its project to the LIFE Programme on Environment by July 14.
This is a unique opportunity to access funding of up to €2 million in order to develop a project on waste-to-energy. This programme counts with the institutional support of the European Commission’s DG CONNECT within the framework of Startup Europe and is aimed at officials and policy makers from municipalities, enterprises and public corporations, business associations, institutes of technology, universities and innovative companies with patents. The Accelerathon Waste-2-Energy seeks environmental challenges that can be addressed with the financial and technological boost of the LIFE Programme.
¿Por qué es importante el reto Waste-2-Energy?
Our society is living a transition period towards a greener, more carbon-neutral, circular economy. Although efforts have been made at a national and European level, waste generation is not decreasing. According to the New Circular Economy Action Plan of the European Union, the whole set of economic activities generates up to 2,500 million tons of waste each year.
This is the reason why the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations includes Sustainable Development Goal 7 and 11 that address the issue of waste-to-energy. These SDGs are focused on sustainable consumption and production patterns based on the transformation of non-recyclable waste into energy, such as electricity, steam or hot water, for domestic or industrial purposes.
This joint initiative of Finnova Foundation and the Municipality of Vilamarxant (Valencia) aims to find innovative solutions to transform waste into energy and find innovative solutions focused on significantly limiting the generation of waste. The final objective is to promote the principle of circular economy and to contribute to the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations.
Visit our webpage http://accelerathon.eu/waste2energy to find out more information about the Accelerathon Waste-2-Energy and to watch the opening session again. You will also find in the Accelerathon waste-2-energy webpage the registration form. It will be opened until June 23.
About
Accelerathon
The Accelerathon is an open innovation programme promoted by Finnova Foundation within the framework of the European Commission’s Startup Europe Awards that promotes public-private cooperation and the application of a multidisciplinary approach to the challenges set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This methodology from Finnova combines the concept of hackathon with the principle of acceleration. It aims to find European solutions and funding through an applied, online open innovation system that brings together the different actors of the innovative ecosystem. The Accelerathon is oriented to the European Commission’s LIFE Programme and supports programmes linked to the fight against COVID-19 and legionella, among other common problems.
What is Startup Europe Awards (SEUA)?
It is an initiative of DG CONNECT of the European Commission implemented by the Finnova Foundation and supported by the European Parliament. The SEUA presents a methodology of awards for startups at local, regional, national and European level that promotes open innovation and collaboration between the different actors of the European ecosystem through a public-private partnership to support entrepreneurs.
What is Startup Europe Accelerator?
It is a European accelerator specialised in supporting regional, national and vertical/sectorial incubation programmes, so that startups access the resources offered by the European Union to internationalise their projects. Thanks to Startup Europe Accelerator, they can access the market, go international, carry out European projects, have mentoring, do network and lobbying, receive legal advice and develop international communication.
Ajuntament de Vilamarxant
The municipality of Vilamarxant, in collaboration with the Centre d’Emprenedoria i Innovació del Túria (CEI Túria), provides users with access to services and information, like the ones related to the Accelerathon Waste-2-energy.
It has a global perspective concerning projects, institutions and different types of entities that work in the same domain all over the world.
Alongside CEI Túria, Vilamarxant’s main objectives are to support innovation, to extend new technologies to society and to become a regional and international leader in this domain.
Centre d’Emprenedoria i Innovació del Túria (CEI Túria)
The CEI Túria aims to enhance entrepreneurship and new technologies at a regional and international level. Its main objective is to materialize and experience new ways of living, working, learning and interacting through entrepreneurship and innovation.
· It promotes entrepreneurship, the creation of startups and employment generation.
· It promotes new lines of business activities connected with innovation, new technologies and emerging sectors.
· It creates a community of entrepreneurs where projects and experiences can be shared, and where synergies and alliances with other municipalities can be established for the development of collaborative projects.
· It helps organizations and projects to develop business plans and look for public, private or European funding.
· It contributes to the revitalization of the productive fabric in Vilamarxant, the region of Camp de Túria and neighbouring areas.
El CEI Túria represents an open innovation model where entrepreneurs, creators, the civil society and organizations cooperate in order to create wealth, employment and knowledge for the combat of this new ecosystem’s challenges.
Finnova Foundation
Finnova is the European foundation for innovation funding. Its main goal is to promote the cooperation between public and private sectors through the best low-cost, technological solutions, in order to address social challenges such as employment, entrepreneurship, the SDG of the United Nations, circular economy, waste recovery, sustainable tourism, and the fight against climate change.
Finnova Foundation promotes green employment, economic recovery, and training and employment for the youth. http://finnova.eu/
Contact:
– For any questions, please contact:
Juan Manuel Revuelta, CEO of Finnova Foundation. Email: info@finnova.eu.Telephone: +32 475 97 42 77
– Press Head contact details:
Lola Bordás, Head of Communication and Marketing at Finnova Foundation. Email: cmo@finnova.eu. Telephone: +34 619 11 02 66