EIT Climate-KIC innovators win at INNOVEIT 2017

Europe’s most ground-breaking entrepreneurs and innovators were honoured last night at the EIT Awards ceremony at one of Europe’s most important innovation forums, INNOVEIT.

The winner of the Change Award was Florence Gschwend, who was supported by EIT Climate-KIC to develop Crysalix Technologies. 

Florence said “I am so happy and humbled to have been awarded the Change Award! Crysalix Technologies hope to use our expertise and pioneering spirit to solve many critical problems our society is facing in the light of global warming, pollution, and scarceness of resources.

“Our first product is a process to make use of unwanted waste wood and produce bioderived products for cheaper, but we hope this will only be the beginning and many more disruptive technologies will come out of our laboratories.”

Florence’s work has also been recognised by Forbes, which listed her as one of the 30-under-30 in Europe, in their Science & Healthcare category. 

Two of the remaining three nominees in the finals for the Change Award, which is one of three award categories, also participated in EIT Climate-KIC run programmes.

One of those nominees is Eline Leising, General Manager of CaffeInk.

Eline and CaffeInk are connected to the EIT Community by Eline’s participation in EIT Climate-KIC’s Master Label programme, the Journey and the Greenhouse programme. CaffeInk gives coffee waste a second life by extracting the pigments and using them to produce sustainable ink, forming part of a new value chain based on sustainability.

The annual awards ceremony represents an opportunity to celebrate the entrepreneurial achievements of the EIT Community and highlight successful innovations and the teams that created them. INNOVEIT2017 exists to inspire a new generation of young professionals by facilitating new personal contacts with entrepreneurial role models and showcasing how the EIT can help to develop entrepreneurial careers.

INNOVEIT 2017 brought together around 600 entrepreneurs, representatives of higher education and research, EU, national and regional policy makers, as well as EIT graduates and other key innovation actors.