A waste biomass developer, a photovoltaics re-tooler and a company that reuses fumes from airplanes are the three national finalists from Cyprus and Greece to take part in CleanLaunchpad’s European final, organised by Climate-KIC, the EU’s main climate innovation initiative.
The national finalists of Europe’s largest cleantech idea competition were: Green Wings, a system that produces electricity from the exhausted gases of airplanes during take-off; Bio2chp, a solution for the production of energy from waste biomass; and Necova, a system that retrofits photovoltaic installations to enhance their performance and produce hot water at no extra cost.
In Cyprus and Greece the competition was organised by the entrepreneurship platform Chrysalis LEAP http://chrysalisleap.com/ and sponsored by EY Cyprus http://www.ey.com/CY/en/Home .
At the European final, that will take place in Valencia on October 29-31, Green Wings, Bio2chp and Necova will compete against the best European cleantech ideas.
The top three winners of the European final will win up to 95,000 euros each in equity-free seed capital and entry to the coveted Climate-KIC acceleration programme, an 18-month real-life business school that will allow them to develop and commercialise their idea. In addition, the overall winner of CleanLaunchpad will receive a cash prize of 10,000 euros, while second and third place winners will be awarded with 5,000 and 2,500 euros, respectively.
Communications and Works Minister Marios Demetriades highlighted the significance of this competition for Cyprus and the need to use private equity for the development of new businesses instead of depending solely on bank loans.
Andreas Demetriou, CEO of EY Cyprus, added: “Helping entrepreneurs is an investment in corporate responsibility that pays premium returns to us, the most important of which are inspiration and hope for our country’s future.”
Chrysalis LEAP (Launching Entrepreneurship Acceleration Platform) is the first accelerator in Cyprus which provides start-up teams with the necessary tools and skills to transform their ideas in the fields of cleantech and sustainable development into solid, scalable and marketable business ideas.
