2016 Hello Tomorrow Challenge pitches
A recap of this year’s Challenge accompanied by pitch videos
So you missed out on the Hello Tomorrow Challenge grand finale? No fear, below is a recap of all the finalist projects with the pitch videos. Enjoy!
Grand Prize Winner: Lilium Aviation
Sponsors: BNP Paribas (Grand Prize) and Safran (Aeronautics)
Lilium Jet, a German startup, won the €15,000 aeronautics prize and the €100,000 grand prize for its all-electric personal jet that could reach a velocity of 300 km per hour and perform vertical take-offs and landings thanks to their breakthrough patented propulsion technology. The team behind Lilium believes that their product will help solve the problem of traffic congestion in urban areas, allowing people to reach their desired destinations much more quickly and in an environmentally-friendly way.
“It is really the first time that I’ve met so many brilliant minds and important contacts who can help accelerate and make our jet market-ready. The competition is cutting-edge, and is the only event that really helps and understands deep-tech start-ups,” said Patrick Nathen, cofounder.
Air Quality Winner: White Lab
Sponsor: Air Liquide
White Lab has been selected as the global winner of the Air Quality track prize of €15,000 for their Sensio AIR, the first and only patented allergen tracker. It is the only air quality monitor that can identify types of particles in the air and not simply count them. For the first time, you will know exactly what is in the air when you have an allergy attack or asthma. It therefore helps you and your doctor understand and diagnose your symptoms, by relying on hard data to provide better healthcare services, completely equipped with a unique statistical tool for smart patient assessment.
Food & Agriculture Winner: SafetyNet Technologies
Sponsor: Carrefour
SafetyNet Technologies, which won the Food & Agriculture track prize of €15,000, builds sophisticated, robust, and cost-effective underwater lighting systems that attach to fishing gear to help fishermen catch only the right fish. These devices make commercial fishing practices much more selective, using the different ways that fish respond to light to attract target species and release everything else.
This added selectivity helps fishermen comply with strict new fishing regulations without damaging their business models, whilst also helping ensure a more reliable marine food source for a rapidly growing global population.
Healthcare Winner: NovaGray
Sponsor: Roche
NovaGray has been selected as the global winner for the €15,000 Healthcare track prize for its technology that predicts the reaction of patients to radiotherapy.
Until now, radiation oncologists have had no tool to predict a patient’s likeliness to develop severe effects before starting a radiotherapy, which leads them to deliver standardized protocols to all patients even when that level of treatment may not be the best option. One of the major challenges in radiobiology is to accurately predict patients’ radio-sensitivity in order to tailor treatments, which would improve radiotherapy efficiency and increase cure rates.
NovaGray has developed the world’s first clinically-validated test that can identify patients who are at risk of developing severe effects from radiation therapy simply by using a blood sample.
Industry 4.0 Winner: re:3D
Sponsor: Airbus
The winner of the €15,000 Industry 4.0 track prize is re:3D, a Texas-based hardware company tackling affordable, human-scale 3D printing. Re:3D manufactures Gigabot, the world’s largest industrial 3D printer under $9,000. Gigabot rivals the printing resolution of other industrial printers at 1/10 the cost and boasts a build volume 30X larger than desktop models.
Having perfected the accessible personal factory, re:3D is now focused on enabling pellet printing from reclaimed plastic, so anyone can have complete control over their supply chain from anywhere.
Transportation & Mobility Winner: Canard Drones
Sponsor: Michelin & Groupe ADP
Canard Drones took home the €15,000 Transportation & Mobility track prize. Canard Drones is a Smart Cities / Smart Airports IoT platform that allows ultra-fast monitoring and calibration of aeronautical navigation aids in airports by using fully automated, unmanned, self-guided UAVs that perform 100% accurate flight inspections, support an eco-friendly 0% emissions procedure, and comply with all international regulations.
This allows for drastic operational cost reductions for airports and avoids the opportunity cost of lost income by reducing downtime of closed runways.
Beauty & Wellbeing Winner: Blitab
Sponsor: L’Oréal
Blitab won the Beauty & Wellbeing track prize of €15,000 for developing an “iPad” for the 285 million blind and visually impaired people on the planet. Two years after their first participation in Hello Tomorrow, the startup came back with a working prototype of a unique tactile tablet for Braille reading that displays one whole page Braille text at once, and can be refreshed without any mechanical elements.
Simply put, it is like an e-book that, instead of using a screen, displays small physical bubbles that can be inflated or deflated through a complex underlying microfluidic system.
By allowing a direct conversion of any text file or web page into Braille, their tablet offers a completely new user experience for visually impaired people through touch navigation, text-to-speech output, and Perkins-style keyboard application.
Data & AI Winner: Koniku
Sponsor: La French Tech
Koniku was awarded the €15,000 Data & AI track prize. Koniku is going beyond silicon by building radical next-generation computational systems using real biological neurons to create neural chips or “AI” chips. Their first patent-pending device, an odor positioning system, will be released in 2017.
Going beyond hardware, Koniku’s vision is to build the new platform called “wetware,” which could replace or outperform silicon to be at the core of computational systems of the future.
Water & Waste Winner: CocoPallet
Sponsor: Sycomore Asset Management
CocoPallet, a “waste2value” company that makes affordable, sustainable pallets from coconut waste, was awarded the Waste & Water track prize of €15,000.
They have developed a technique to press 100% bio-based export-compliant pallets for Asian exporters. Currently, these exporters use 1.7 billion wooden pallets per year, causing 170 million trees to be harvested.
CocoPallet saves millions of trees, heavily reducing our carbon footprint while paying farmers for their waste and saving costs for customers.
Energy Winner: H2GO Power
Sponsor: Butagaz
H2GO Power was awarded the €15,000 Energy track prize for its impactful solution on energy security and availability. H2GO Power has developed an affordable energy storage technology that allows for energy from a renewable source to be stored as hydrogen in smart nanomaterials and released in a controlled manner.
This technology enables the increase of market penetration of renewables in the developed and developing world and reduces emissions significantly. It allows for accessible, affordable, and reliable zero-emission energy for the poorest billion where electricity infrastructure doesn’t exist and the only alternative is polluting fuels like diesel.
To get in touch with any of the startups, please contact👉 challenge@hello-tomorrow.org
