Postdoctoral researchers Dr. Jeff Mangers, Dr. Alexej Simeth from the Department of Engineering at the University of Luxembourg have won the 11th edition of Ideation Camp with their project “Circu Invent” whose objective is to develop a circular economy assessment tool to help product designers in the packaging industry create recyclable product designs with lower penalty fees. The award carried a 10000€ funding for further developments.
Launched in 2017 by the University of Luxembourg, Ideation Camp is a five-days ling workshop in which the participants work in cross-disciplinary teams, tackle challenges, come up with solutions, assess their ideas, launch their ventures and pitch their plans in front of entrepreneurs and investors.
The jury composed of Marco Caldana (Farad Group), Diego de Biaso (Technoporte), Luisa Ferreira (European Investment bank), Marie-Hélène Jobein (University of Luxembourg), Sakthivel Sundharam (FNR) and Joëlle Welfring (Chamber of Deputies) selected the project Circu Event among 14 projects presented.
Based on his PhD thesis “Analysis of end-of-life process data to enable design knowledge for circularity“, Dr. Jeff Mangers appreciated this opportunity: “I decided to take part in this Ideation Camp to get away from the research perspective only and test the applicability of my project in a real environment. The challenge I am working on is how to monetize an environmental issue (waste management) which was a valid problem on a scientific level but more difficult to implement in the form of a startup.”
For Dr. Alexej Simeth, taking part in this competition was a great experience: “I really loved the Ideation Camp. It was great to challenge our idea with so many experienced mentors and experts. The last couple of days were very tough but it helped us to shape our idea. I can recommend Ideation Camp to any student who is interested in entrepreneurship, it was awesome! Now we are looking forward to taking the next steps on our journey.”
The two researchers are currently working on a potential commercialization through an FNR-JUMP project.