Brussels -- Academic entrepreneurs from Switzerland, Finland, the United Kingdom and Israel were recognised in the third annual ACES awards, held in Zurich and awarded by the Science Business Innovation Board.

Winners include entrepreneurs who developed waste recycling technology for laminated materials, a fault current limiter for electricity grids, low-cost molecular assays for the early diagnosis of schizophrenia, a barcode scanning application for smart phones that allow consumers to compare products and prices while shopping, and therapy software for dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

In the Materials/Chemistry category, the prize went to Carlos Ludlow from the University of Cambridge, UK, founder of Enval Ltd. Enval’s technology closes the recycling loop for laminated packaging waste. The company is commercialising waste recycling and environmental technologies that can recover clean aluminium from packaging waste such as toothpaste tubes. The recovered aluminium can, in turn, be resmelted. Twenty customers worldwide are testing Enval’s technology, which provides the first alternative to dumping such waste in landfill. In Europe alone, Enval could treat an estimated two million tonnes of waste per annum which would otherwise be sent to landfill. The judges were impressed by Enval’s technology and large commercial potential.

The ACES is a pan-European competition among companies spun out from universities – to recognise the best academic entrepreneurs from across all technology disciplines. The competition is open to entrepreneurs in the European Union and countries affiliated with European Union’s 7th Framework Programme for research, including Israel and Russia.

The ACES Awards 2011 are sponsored by the GE, Foley & Lardner LLP, ETH Zurich, the Office for Economy and Labour of the Canton of Zurich, the Swiss Innovation Promotion Agency of the Swiss Confederation, and the Innovation Board. This year’s ACES conference is also supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

More details about the other winners can be found under sciencebusiness.net.

Quelle: Science Business

Zurück