Image: Accenture
At first sight, they may have little in common. But the world of Industry & Infrastructure, Climate & Energy, Finance & Prosperity are all fundamentally changing and require innovative solutions. The Blue Tulip Awards is not shying away from any of these challenges. In fact, with the winners of the 3rd Generation, it may have found solutions for some tough problems. Meet Gradyent, Naturbeads and Voyc.
Naturbeads preventing pollution
Plastic pollution is a big problem. A plastic island the size of France is reportedly floating in the middle of the ocean. But it’s not just a problem of big proportions. Tiny particles of plastic in cosmetics cause just as much harm. Through our sewage systems, they end up in open water where they are impossible to retrieve and embed themselves deep into nature’s ecosystems.
Recently, the winners of the 2021 Future Hamburg Award were announced.
Instead of desperately trying to filter these microscopic plastic particles from the water, Giovanna Laudisio is addressing the problem at the source. With Naturbeads she has developed microbeads from natural, biodegradable cellulose. “We try to prevent pollution, rather than solve it. You can collect a plastic bag or a bottle, but microplastics are too small. It’s really important to remove them before they end up in nature.”
Small plastics, big problem
Let’s take a step back first. Because yes, cosmetics often contain plastic. Laudisio explains. “Microbeads have multiple functions. In some products, they are exfoliant, but they are also used in cream and lotion as sensory agents because they provide a nice feeling for the skin. They have many other applications, for example in paints, adhesives, packaging, in fluids for oil and gas. Plastic is used because it is cheap and very easy to produce.”
Laudisio is confident she has the solution. She and her team managed to create beads in the same shape and with the same performance as plastic. They will be degraded in wastewater treatment plants, but if they’ll still end up in nature they won’t do any harm there.
“We have preliminary results that our product works, and we are constantly working with users to expand the range of applications.” Winning the Climate & Energy theme of the Blue Tulip Awards is a good sign that their business model is poised to work. Now, their challenge is to scale up for the monumental task ahead. “The plastic that needs to be replaced is in the order of hundreds of thousands of tonnes. We need funding, we need production plants.”
Gradyent’s Digital Twin for heat networks
Also thinking big is the winner in the Industry & Infrastructure theme of the Blue Tulip Awards, Gradyent. They developed what CEO and co-founder Hevré Huisman describes as a ‘smart thermostat’ for district heating networks. Smart software creates a virtual simulation, a Digital Twin, of the entire physical network.
This allows operators to test optimal settings and analyse the outcomes. It can result in a significantly more efficient distribution of heat, thus conserving energy and reducing emissions.
More complex systems
“These days there are many new ways to provide warmth that make city heating systems more complex”, Huisman explains their proposition. “Like residual heat from data centers or industries or geothermal sources that require their own balance,” Huisman says some energy companies are experimenting with massive e-boilers or heat pumps, adding to the level of complexity.
Also read: How innovation and scale go hand in hand, say Industry & Infrastructure experts of Blue Tulip Awards
Managing those increasingly complex systems is tricky business best left to Gradyent’s Digital Twin. “In an existing network, you can use it to conserve energy. But you can also use the software to develop new networks. Then we can not only help reduce the energy usage but also effectively allow for new heat sources.”
Voyc rolling out in Europe
For the winners in the Finance & Prosperity theme of the Blue Tulip Awards, taking home the award is a great way to get recognition in the Dutch ecosystem. Originally founded in South Africa by CTO Lethabo Motsoaled and CEO Matthew Westaway, Voyc moved its headquarters to the Netherlands last year in the search for expansion in Europe.
Voyc offers call centre monitoring software. By using smart software it doesn’t have to rely on people listening in on conversations between customer service and customers. Their AI can automatically check all phone calls in real-time and flag anything that’s of interest for quality assurance.
‘Every call treated with care’
“We are a very mission-driven company”, says Motsoaled. “We want every conversation to be consistent. Every call needs to be treated with care and if it isn’t we need to find it.”
That mission comes from a personal frustration, she says. “It’s not that companies don’t care about customers. They do try, they just don’t have the capacity. The feeling of relief when an agent has helped you, that’s why we’re there. Companies have bad days, they shouldn’t become notorious for those.”
Audacious goal
Motsoaled explains they initially moved to Europe to target the UK market. But Dutch companies quickly showed interest, which posed a challenge for Voyc. “We managed to quickly validate our system for the Dutch language”. A testament to the quality of their software, says Motsoaled. “When you build for complicated edge cases, easier cases are easier to solve.”
When it comes to growth, moving to Europe has been a smart move for Voyc. Next month, they’re scheduled to hit the milestone of having monitored a million calls with their system. “We mapped out our big, hairy, audacious goal”, says Motsoaled. “By 2026 we want to reach 2000 companies and want to have monitored calls of 200,000 agents. We can reach that by just targeting the financial market.”
‘One thousand tonnes’
Naturbeads’ Laudisio shows the same ambition: ready to scale up with their current product. “We get about one request per week. There are many companies showing interest. Not only in cosmetics, but it is also interesting for paint and coatings or medical applications.”
Most companies are looking to engage with Naturbeads once they’ve ramped up production. “We plan to produce one thousand tonnes in 2023, then we can start selling worldwide in 2024. We already have a company interested in a global license.”
A la carte
At Gradyent, they are looking to scale up and add some new clients to their portfolio. Huisman explains their product is ready. “Networks for heating are very diverse and different everywhere. But the different themes and methods they employ are finite. Once we’ve solved them all, we can offer something like an ‘á la carte’ menu. That makes it a bit easier for us to roll out.” However, Huisman emphasizes nothing comes easy in his line of work. “Our software is scalable, but it’s still going to be a big task.”
Winning the Blue Tulip Awards offered them more than an award and exposure, says Huisman. Feedback from the judges was very helpful, he says. “It’s a very nice confirmation that we’re doing something interesting. For a startup, that trust is important.”
Important feedback
For Voyc, besides winning the award, the feedback they received might also prove important. For instance on the matter of security of personal data in all the monitored calls. For Motsoaledi, the highest grade of security was so obvious, they felt like they didn’t even need to tell their clients. “Now we know we need to communicate that more. We want to make Voyc easy to use, but we should also tell people it’s easy to secure.”
As for the future, it looks bright for Voyc. And the goal for CEO Westaway is quite clear. For him, his company can be considered a success, if he hears someone talking about their experience with his system. “That’s what I want. To just sit in a restaurant and hear people around me talking about how our software helped them.”
Next up: Blue Tulip Awards Generation 4
While the winners of Generation 3 have an prestigious award to add to their trophy case, a new batch of innovators is gearing up to aim for the win. Generation 4 of the Blue Tulip Awards is kicking off in August. Anyone with an innovative, viable and game changing idea in the themes of Health & Well-being, Consumption & Production or Cities & Communities can sign up. Registrations start on August 16th.
