rotterzwam wins CleanTech Rotterdam final [2015]

Yesterday, April 29th, the international startup competition Get in the Ring kicked off the competition season in Rotterdam with the first local final of one hundred worldwide. The Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, together with local partners the Municipality of Rotterdam and CleanTech Delta, and national partners ING, BDO, and APM Terminals, organized a special CleanTech edition for startups in clean technologies or those that have made sustainability or environmental friendliness a core component of their business. Proud winners of the day were RotterZwam; mushrooms grown on Rotterdam coffee grounds; CocoPallet; low-cost eco-transport pallets made from coconut waste; and African Clean Energy; solar biomass cookstoves.

Throughout the day, 25 startups from across the Netherlands competed before a jury, including Fred van Beuningen (CleanTech Delta), Mark de Jong (Investors Club), Damien van der Bijl (InnovationQuarter), and Martijn Baijens (ING). They competed for one of six spots in three final battles and a place in the next round of the competition, the Dutch one on November 20th. The six selected startups were 4Silence, RotterZwam, CocoPallet, African Clean Energy, Blue Battery, and Seamore. From the three final battles, the jury chose RotterZwam, CocoPallet, and African Clean Energy as the day's winners . Battle jury member Job Nijs applauded the participating startups: "Today we saw some amazing CleanTech startups [DT3], and after watching these battles, I believe there really are startups that [DT4] can solve the world's problems."

Alderman Struijvenberg of the Municipality of Rotterdam emphasized the energy of both the startup entrepreneurs and the audience: "This is wonderful to see, especially in the CleanTech sector, one of the four sectors the Municipality of Rotterdam is paying extra attention to. The CleanTech sector is booming, and that's partly thanks to the entrepreneurs pitching today."

Source: https://ece.nl/gitr-cleantech-rotterdam/