40 top companies to the Sustainable Industry Challenge final
Following an intensive selection procedure, a couple of industrial companies, the challenge setters, together with the initiator Economic Board Groningen, selected 40 innovative companies (scale-ups) from 13 different countries and invited them to the two-day final event of the Sustainable Industry Challenge, Chemport Europe edition in the north of the Netherlands. After the introduction and content discussions with the challenge setters, these scale-ups are also introduced to other relevant regional players to ensure maximum impact on regional business.
More than 200 innovative, fast-growing companies from 33 countries entered for one of the challenges and following a number of intensive selection rounds, 40 companies from 13 different countries have been selected and invited to the two-day final event in the north of the Netherlands on 7 and 8 January 2020. The top three countries of origin are the Netherlands, the United States and Germany. With companies from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, France, Spain, Latvia, Hong Kong, Belgium and Canada, it will be a truly international two-day event.
Impact on regional business
In the end, two finalists will battle for first place and the first prize of €100,000 over five rounds. This sum of money is intended to develop the winning innovation for a sustainability issue; the innovation with most impact on the region. However, the most important underlying purpose of the Sustainable Industry Challenge goes much further. The organisation hopes that these innovative companies from all over the world will link up with companies in the region.
The region meets the world and vice versa
During the two-day event, the world will meet the strength and pride of the northern Netherlands region and the entire northern region will meet the world. The central theme of the event is creating strong connections. These connections are made during the meetings between the industrial companies and fast-growing start-ups in relation to the innovations on offer, but also between the start-ups and the other regional players during a matchmaking event. The matchmaking event, organised by Campus Groningen, offers around thirty regional companies and organisations the opportunity to meet the international teams. There is also plenty of opportunity for networking with the 500+ professionals that have been invited to the New Year’s Reception of Groningen Seaports, where the final takes place in the form of a battle in a real boxing ring.
High-quality entries
The challenge setters, including Teijin Aramid, Suiker Unie, ESD-SIC and ENGIE, are pleased with the high quality of the entries. For example, the founder of the one of the participating scale-ups is listed in the Forbes 30 under 30 for the energy industry and another scale-up is mentioned in The Digest magazine. A third company received two Seals of Excellence from the European Commission as part of Horizon 2020.
Edward Groen, Energy Transition & Sustainable Development Director of Teijin Aramid commented “Although we formulated a fairly specific challenge, some 21 companies entered with an innovation for our challenge. We selected seven those as being of interest. They include four technologies that are new to us and that we would like to consider and study in more detail. We are looking forward to talking to the scale-ups on 7 and 8 January.”