“This partnership with Beta-i brought us extraordinary results, because we got to the end with solutions that actually solve critical and real problems and are aligned with Sociedade Ponto Verde’s strategic goals.”
Ana Trigo Morais, CEO at Sociedade Ponto Verde.
The Demo Day of re_source program marked the end of this pioneer edition in taking the next level of circular economy. It was also the time to show the collaborative work made between the startups and the pilot partners, throughout the last months:
FYCH & Nestlé | Tratolixo | Sociedade Ponto Verde
Startup FYCH, from Spain, is fighting the lack of structure to recycle multilayer packaging and the negative impacts that this gap has for brands. The innovators at FYCH are doing it together with Nestlé, Tratolixo and Sociedade Ponto Verde, by implementing – in recyclers of the Integrated System of Packaging Waste Management (SIGRE) – their delamination technology to separate the various layers of materials of these packages and enhance their recycling.
FYCH & Lusoforma
This time partnering with Lusoforma, the startup has also tested its technology in the recycling of the lid of aluminum take-away products, which are composed of paper, plastic and aluminum, obtaining separation results of 100%.
Magnomer & Super Bock Group| Tratolixo
Magnomer is creating a pilot with the Super Bock Group. The project consists of creating labels with magnetized ink, meaning they can be more easily separated from the plastic, hence allowing for better packaging recycling. The solution from the North American startup can increase recycling levels by up to 20% and make Super Bock the first company in Portugal to apply 100% recyclable labels on its bottles. Tratolixo will also be a partner in the screening tests of these packages.
Reath & Sociedade Ponto Verde| Super Bock Group
Coming all the way from Scotland, Reath has teamed up with Sociedade Ponto Verde and the Super Bock Group to monitor the packaging life cycle – through the creation of a digital passport to be placed on physical products. Overall, this solution will provide companies and consumers with the proper data on the usability and life cycle of a package and on which products are placed inside. Specifically to Sociedade Ponto Verde, it will allow the company to obtain information on non-reusable packaging placed on the market, as well as the necessary information to fill out the annual declaration (document that companies adhering to the Green Dot system fill out annually to report the total weight of this packaging).
Polytag & Lipor | Tratolixo | Sociedade Ponto Verde
Polytag, from the UK, has teamed up with Lipor, Tratolixo and Sociedade Ponto Verde to create a digital deposit return and rewards scheme in the Porto area. Their solution will use Polytag’s “describe, tag and trace” technology to first tag products with unique identifiers. Then, it will allow consumers to scan the codes with a purpose-built application and claim their deposits in the comfort of their homes. All this, without having to use inconvenient and expensive vending machines. The packaging will be disposed of via their normal bin or communal container system, creating a cheaper, more convenient and effective deposit return scheme in the area.
MyResonance & Lusoforma | Lipor
Also from the UK, innovators at MyResonance are working together with Lusoforma and Lipor to implement a social network in Portugal. It should use gamification techniques to empower organizations to communicate, promote and engage their communities to take collective action around ESG-based initiatives. This would turn each person/user into a brand ambassador while positively building an online presence and identity to promote a cleaner world.
NextLap is the open innovation program designed to give a new life to tyre components. Between September 2020 and May 2021, it joined innovators and industry partners to develop new solutions focused on the end-of-life tyres and its derived components – rubber, steel, and textile. And the results were truly rewarding!
NextLap is a program by Valorpneu and Genan, developed by Beta-i.
All about Sustainability
The Portuguese newspaper Jornal Económico has summed it up correctly: every year, around the world, over 30 million tons of tyres are discarded. Only in Portugal, we’re talking about 80 thousand tons, with 60% going to recycling and 40% to energy production. According to a study by Valorpneu, one of the main partners of NextLap, per each ton of recovered tyres, we’re avoiding about 1.3 tons of CO2 emissions and saving 37283 energy megajoules.
The most common usages of tyre rubber recovery are usually sports pavements, synthetic grass filling, isolation materials and concrete used in roads and airports. In the end, NextLap is all about sustainability and circular economy. Tyres go circular, always and forever.
Innovation road trip: finding new solutions…
In the end of its journey, NextLap gathered the final innovators and the program’s partners for a demo day, to show results of the work done between each other.
Two of the pilot projects developed during NextLap were the result of a collaboration between the worldwide known Decathlon and two of the innovators of the program: Rubberlink and Tintex, both from Portugal.
The innovators at Rubberlink have designed a devulcanized rubber solution that allowed Decathlon to create a shoe prototype with a recycled shoe sole.
Tintex, on the other hand, has used rubber powder to create the vamp of gymnastic shoes, a product to be tested also by Decathlon. This innovative solution is showing the never thought potential of this tyre material. Besides, Tintex is also considering reusing the textile material from tyres in bicycle saddles.
Pavnext, also from Portugal, has developed an electric solution that reduces the speed of vehicles circulating within regions, covered by rubber made out of tyre recycling. Ruconbar, from Croatia, has presented a solution for acoustic barriers in trailways with rubber made out of tyre recycling.
… and Art
NextLap has taken tyre upcycling to a whole new level: Art.
“UNO” is a sculpture made out of derivatives from pieces of old tyres. This piece of art was made by Filippo Fiumani and João Mendonça (Luzíadas) with the curatorship of Departamento (Bruno Pereira). It gives a new life to materials that no longer have their original purpose.
“UNO” can be seen temporarily in Lisbon, by the docks, in Alcântara.
Designing the Future
José de Carvalho, Innovation Director at Genan, sums it right: “The goal of NextLap was to bring together innovators and industries and open the door for new solutions to turn into commercial circuits. The first objective was effectively achieved and, with the creation of the prototypes, it will be possible to evaluate all the inherent properties in order to enable the transition to mass production”
NextLap is just the first step of further collaborations. Innovators and partners have met, worked together and designed a new future for sustainability for the end-of-life tyres. We’re eager to see what the next lap will show.
Such a week! From 3rd to the 7th of February, the SOL Mobility bootcamp brought 25 startups from 13 different countries to present their solutions for urban mobility to the public and corporate partners of this Smart Open Lisboa (SOL) vertical edition. Urban mobility is a context where convergence is absolutely crucial to make change happen, so the collaborative innovation approach managed by Beta-i on this Open Innovation program just fits like a glove.
And after five days of intense collaboration between corporates and startups, always under Beta-i guidance and experts team support, 17 out of these 25 startups were invited to keep working with the companies, in order to develop the stunning number of 30+ pilots from now on. Check this quick video:
Such achievement was only possible because of the partner’s vision and commitment to tackle some of Lisbon’s biggest mobility challenges: from E-mobility to Digital & Personalized Mobility, from Smart Parking to Fleet, Asset and Traffic Management. They were able not only to select promising solutions from international startups but also to set up joint pilots – the best metric to translate the true collaborative innovation culture enforced by Beta-i on a daily basis.
“Our challenges are so big and diverse. That’s why this is a very good program since it enables us to work with different companies, partners and people to get different solutions“, points out the Head of the Municipal Mobility & Transport Directorate in Lisbon, Francisca Ramalhosa. She adds that “think and act like a startup” is also a huge cultural challenge – a common topic shared by some other partners, such as CP, which is currently implementing a strategic planning and innovation area. “It is crucial for us to be aware of the changes in our industry and stay open for a dialogue with a new generation of mobility solutions, so programs like this are really important”, adds CP Sectorial Supervisor, Teresa Sousa.
International and fully private companies also acknowledge the need for mutual collaboration to boost new models. “You can’t solve problems being isolated or alone. We must converge our efforts and combine solutions”, says Director for Connected Mobility at Siemens, Andy Gill. “So getting to know these high-quality startups during the program, and partnering with those who see us as a valuable partner to move forward is a fantastic model”. His thoughts also resonate on Galp, the Portuguese-based energy company that recently announced its shift as the biggest solar energy player in the Iberian Peninsula. “We’re diversifying our energy sources, and this shift must be accompanied by other strategic moves”, adds Galp Head of Innovation and Energy Efficiency, Nicolle Fernandes. “That’s what we understand SOL Mobility as a valuable program to help us see new ways of doing things and push for tangible innovation, perceived by our final clients”.
Lisbon has won the title of European Green Capital 2020, and one of the reasons is that Lisbon has a cohesive city-wide vision for sustainable urban mobility. This is achieved through measures to restrict car use and prioritise walking, cycling and public transport, and also by promoting programs like Smart Open Lisboa. This year the City Council also signed a Corporate Mobility Pact with several local partners (companies and institutions) with a set of commitments designed to make mobility in Lisbon more sustainable, through means such as creating conditions for employees to adopt new solutions and mobility behaviours.
So get ready for May, when all the pilot development impact results will be presented during SOL Mobility Demo Day: stay smart & open – oops, stay tuned 🙂
It’s been two weeks since Smart Open Lisboa 2017, the biggest open innovation program directly connected to the city, came to an end. In the second, remastered and more extended edition the finalist startups had the amazing opportunity to validate their solutions in real time and in real environment contributing to the upgrade of city life.
The partners of the program, Lisbon City Council, Tourism of Portugal, Cisco, Altice, Sharing Cities, Grow, Masai, EPAL & Beta-i chose to focus on 4 intervention fields called challenges: Tourism & Culture, Mobility, Citizen Engagement and Sustainability.
During the Demo Day, our teams presented the learnings they got from the whole program, the results of the Experimentation and their next steps.
On the Tourism challenge, AppyFans, a gamification app that serves as a personal assistant for local shopping, managed to establish a collaboration with 10 of the central stores from the Lojas com história network and they are about to extend this number beyond the program. Go WiFi, the largest network in Portugal of around 200 free wifi hotspots also joined their platform. Following Lisbon, they closed a partnership with the Association of Merchants of Porto to market the platform of their 2.000 associates.
In the area of Sustainability, GreenbyWeb after installing their product Aquamote, a smart irrigation system, in the green spaces of Avenida da Liberdade and Praça de Espanha achieved 71% water savings. While they still have their controllers operating there, they will soon install also in Martim Moniz gardens and they are in contacts with other city councils in Portugal.
Our finalist Trigger Systems with their dedicated IoT platform & apps deployed different solutions for cityefficiency and control. Their ongoing irrigation pilot in Jardim de Estrela achieved to decrease water consumption and workforce. The installation of LoRa smart meter controllers at the offices of our partner EPAL facilitated the analytics of consumption data and alerts, among other things. Finally, at Rossio square they installed fountain controllers for the people to interact with through a QR code.
In Mobility, the startup KLCwith an electric shared mobility solution for companies has been running a pilot with Card4B (member of the MASAI platform), which will continue for 2 months more. Meanwhile they are getting useful feedback from the users and finalising their mobile app that will mainly permit fleet management, plus having other helpful features.
On the way to increase road safetySOSpluscollaboratedwith Civil Protection & Firemen headquarters and installed their tracker device on 7 ambulances. In this way, they were able to get their first users/drivers, improve their app and at the same time learn first hand the needs of their client. Among their future plans is to integrate into third party apps.
Regarding intelligent transport systems Connect Robotics, a drone delivery service for different kinds of goods, thanks to the interactions with the Partners during the program has discovered various areas of operations. Although they didn’t manage so far to get permissions for the city flights, they got a lot of learnings on the risks they need to consider and they are now working on a collaboration with Europe University for the transport of books & docs.
Another case of product development & useful learnings is Openly, on the Citizen engagement challenge; a search engine to find instantly any governmental info or service. During the Experimentation they made connections with different public initiatives of Lisbon’s City Council, which helped them understand the landscape and test the first versions of their product. Now the bigger picture for them is to organise world’s governance information and so far they have mapped local info of 86 countries and collected around 200K government sources.
As we are always aiming to be better on the work we deliver at Beta-i and take every challenge as a learning opportunity, we are now redesigning the new edition of Smart Open Lisboa program. Watch out for the coming updates on our website.
