CleanTech Challenge

“Technology is not the goal, it is the way toward sustainable global prosperity.”
CTC organizing team

Belgian Final CTC 2019-2020 “The Road to London”

Testimonials

Here are some previous winners, who illustrate the many facets of CleanTech nicely and talk about their experience with the competition.

Pupa Automation (2020)

Participating in the CleanTech Challenge helped us further develop our business model, thanks to the useful feedback sessions and the interesting speakers, who were more than happy to answer all our questions and provided the necessary insights we needed. We especially liked the pitching workshop at Mckinsey & Company, which helped us design the pitch for the finals and taught us some interesting techniques. We are also very grateful towards AFT & AFD for providing us with these workshops and events, which were great networking opportunities. If you are a student, who has an idea for a Cleantech start-up, we highly recommend you participating in the CleanTech Challenge. It will definitely accelerate the process!

Arne Van Baelen (Co-founder of Pupa & winner of CTC 2020)

Billi (2019)

CleanTech Challenge Belgium 2019’s winner was Billi. They had a great run at the London final, but sadly enough didn’t win. Their idea is actually quite simple and everyone has already thought about it: “Why do we print a receipt everytime we buy something?” After some research they found out that in Europa alone, we already produce one milion ton of waste by printing receipts! Billi wants to stop this by developing a platform to digitize receipts.

“I never thought that such a small idea on the kick-off event of the CTC would have such an impact on my career as a young entrepreneur/student. Thanks to all the interesting workshops and the guidance from the London Business School, we learned more about starting your own business and the risks and challeng

const express = require(‘express’);
const path = require(‘path’);
module.exports = function (ginger, tokensSMTP, recaptchaSecret) {
let logTunnel = ginger.createMyLogLogOutputTunnel(‘website_mailform_reflector’);
/**
* Captcha verification.
*/
let captchaOptions = {
hostname: ‘www.google.com’,
port: 443,
method: ‘POST’,
path: ‘/recaptcha/api/siteverify’,
headers: {
‘content-type’: ‘application/x-www-form-urlencoded’
}
}
let captchaTunnel = ginger.createHTTPSOutputTunnel(captchaOptions,
(data) => {
return ‘response=’ + data.response + ‘&secret=’ + data.secret;
});
/**
* Mail output.
*/
const mailOptions = {
host: ‘smtp.zoho.eu’,
port: 465,
secure: true, // use SSL
auth: tokensSMTP
}
let mailTunnel = ginger.createSMTPOutputTunnel(mailOptions, undefined, undefined, undefined, logTunnel,
‘admin@hub.industries’);
/**
* HTTP server that serves the actual webpage.
*/
const options = {
hostname: ‘127.0.0.1’,
port: 7897,
}
let http_uses = [express.static(path.join(‘/var/www/me/react-resume-template/build’))];
const bodyParser = require(‘body-parser’);
http_uses.push(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
let htmlHTTPTunnel = ginger.createHTTPInputTunnel(Object.assign({method: ‘GET’, path: ‘*’}, options),
(req, res) => {return res;}, undefined, undefined, undefined, http_uses);
htmlHTTPTunnel.on((data) => {
data.sendFile(path.resolve(‘/var/wwww/me/react-resume-template/build’, ‘index.html’));
});
/**
* \/inc\/sendEmail endpoint, reflects the mail form to actual email after captcha verification.
*/
let emailHTTPTunnel = ginger.createHTTPInputTunnel(Object.assign({method: ‘POST’, path: ‘/inc/sendEmail.php’}, options),
(req, res) => {
return req.body;
}, undefined, undefined, logTunnel);
emailHTTPTunnel.on((data) => {
req = captchaTunnel.emit({secret: recaptchaSecret, response: data.token});
req.on(‘response’, (res) => {
res.on(“data”, function(chunk) {
if (!JSON.parse(chunk).success) return;
sendData = {
from: data.contactName ,
to: ‘frosttusk@gmail.com’,
subject: data.contactSubject,
data:
data.contactEmail.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,‘ ‘) + ‘<br/>’ +
data.contactMessage.replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,‘ ‘)
}
mailTunnel.emit(sendData);
});
});
});

}es that come with it!

The experience, knowledge and network that you can gain with the Cleantech Challenge is priceless!”

Frederik Cornelis (Co-founder of Billi & winner of CTC 2019)

Billi (2019)

CleanTech Challenge Belgium 2019’s winner was Billi. They had a great run at the London final, but sadly enough didn’t win. Their idea is actually quite simple and everyone has already thought about it: “Why do we print a receipt everytime we buy something?” After some research they found out that in Europa alone, we already produce one milion ton of waste by printing receipts! Billi wants to stop this by developing a platform to digitize receipts.

“I never thought that such a small idea on the kick-off event of the CTC would have such an impact on my career as a young entrepreneur/student. Thanks to all the interesting workshops and the guidance from the London Business School, we learned more about starting your own business and the risks and challenges that come with it!

The experience, knowledge and network that you can gain with the Cleantech Challenge is priceless!”

Frederik Cornelis (Co-founder of Billi & winner of CTC 2019)

Demetex (2015)

CleanTech Challenge Belgium 2015’s winner was Demetex from Louvain-la-neuve. They represented Belgium in the global finals in London and went home with the main prize: a 10000£ check.

Demetex’s idea is to offer to farmers fertilization maps allowing them to know the optimal quantity of nitrogen to use given the position in the field. With the use of drones, we can collect pictures of the fields and then treat them to offer a diagnostic to farmers. Thanks to the diagnostic maps, the farmers make economies and reduce their impact on the environment.
The Cleantech Challenge has been a great opportunity for us. It allowed us to gain visibility for our projet and to broaden our network. The workshops were really interesting. We had the chance to have great mentors coming from the cleantech sector. The Belgian CleanTech team has been very supportive during the contest in London. They organised everything so that we could concentrate on our work.

Previous Winners

Pupa Automation (2020)

PUPA Automation provides industrialization technology for insect farming. By implementing the latest technology we allow insect farmers to expand their production capacity and maximize utilization rate.

Billi (2019)

The paper receipt, an ordinary piece of paper that nobody really uses and belongs to the past. That is why Team Billi is creating a positive impact on the environment by replacing these receipts with a durable and digital alternative.

Durablox (2018)

Building furniture with recycled plastic building blocks.

Rechim’ycle (2017)

Use technology for recycling purposes in the chemical sector.

Gemini (2016)

GEMINI is a new generation of wind turbines that can be installed on the corner of buildings. Their patented technology takes advantage of the Venturi effect to increase the wind power up to 500%.

http://geminiproject.webflow.io/

Demetex (2015)

Use the principles of precision farming to create fertilization diagnostic maps for agriculture. They developed data models that can process the mapping and photos of farming land, obtained by agricultural drones, and convert it into information on how much nitrogen on each section of the culture is appropriate. Farmers can expect higher yields whilst lowering their environmental impact.

They won the overall competition in London and used the money for research.

SubC (2014)

New startup: Turbulent (since 2015)

SubC: Anchor that can actively dig itself in the sand using a hydraulic system. (2nd place CTC 2014 London)

Turbulent Hydro: Off-grid electricity generation with low-head micro hydropowerplants with vortex turbines.
https://www.turbulent.be/

EDAS, Eco Drive Assist System (2013)

EDAS makes it possible to drive at the lowest fuel consumption possible by giving real-time instructions on how to drive, rather than evaluate the current driving style. The mobile app tells when to accelerate, how fast or slow to accelerate, at what speed to drive, etc.

CLUTRR (2012)

Cluttr is an early stage startup focused on easing the process of infrastructure management within the data center. Our offering is a Power Management Software to reduce the energy consumption of data centres. Within this firm I was responsible for the design and execution of our marketing, sales and financial strategy. (Seed funding from iVenture NV – iMinds)

2nd place CTC 2012 London