Startups in The Hague take on the challenge for a better world
These are the eight nominees for the The Hague Innovators challenge 2022
THE HAGUE, September 9, 2022 – How do we solve issues around sustainability, energy, climate, food and safety in The Hague? With fresh ideas and people who think out of the box. The “The Hague Innovators” challenge of ImpactCity, an initiative of the municipality of The Hague, encourages startups, scale-ups, and students to come up with innovative ideas. Today the nominees were announced.
The annual challenge brings together the top of The Hague’s out-of-the-box thinkers and doers. With winners from previous editions such as Naïf Care, Greenfox, and North Sea Farmers, The Hague Innovators is now an established challenge in The Hague.
The Hague, a true impact city
As an international city of peace and justice, the municipality of The Hague supports and encourages startups and scale-ups working on innovations for a better world. The city is known as “ImpactCity” for good reason and this year it was named second city of The Netherlands when it comes to an attractive climate for startups.
Nominees
The six-member jury selected eight nominees from all applications this year:
Pre-startups
- BeeSage: Making The Hague the first city in the world with fully connected urban apiaries, enabling data-driven beekeeping for productivity and sustainability;
- YouthLead: Making entrepreneurship programs accessible for a younger generation to develop their leadership skills and generate innovative solutions for sustainable development;
- Natural Waste: Making the beauty industry as circular as possible.
Startups
- Sibö: A biotechnology company focused on the development and supply of efficient, clean, and easy-to-incorporate insect-based food ingredients and water-soluble proteins with all essential amino acids;
- WECO: Develops innovative solutions to produce electricity from ocean waves;
- Reprex: Makes big data reliable and accountable, delivering trustworthy analytics and AI solutions;
- STRHIVE: Develops a software tool for organisational learning. By redefining the way to capture, access, and apply learnings, organisations can rethink the way to do international development;
- ECOBLOQ: Designs and builds houses with bio-based materials. Small houses or larger houses, but always comfortable, healthy, and nature inclusive.
The nominees go through a substantive program focused on the further development and growth of the plan or organisation. At the end of the program, all nominees submit a final plan of action and this is pitched before a professional jury.
Final during ImpactFest
The finals are part of the program of the largest impact meetup in Europe: ImpactFest. All nominees will get the opportunity to pitch their innovative solution to an audience that includes entrepreneurs, investors, knowledge institutions, policymakers, and governments. The jury of the The Hague Innovators challenge will then choose one winner in each category. The winners receive cash prizes ranging from €5,000 to €25,000.