That’s a wrap for the second hub.awards, which were presented on Thursday 23 June at the end of a grandiose ceremony at Bozar. The winners included seven companies that embody the innovation and resilience of Brussels. Find out who is behind these positive impact projects.
Konligo is a Belgian start-up founded in 2018 by a team of highly motivated entrepreneurs and researchers and led by engineer Aushim Koumar. Its modular, reusable tents made of 100% recycled Belgian aluminium are the result of more than 15 years of research into light transformable structures at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. This system allows ultra-fast deployment (seven minutes max.) while being robust and aesthetic.
Urbike is a cyclo-logistics cooperative which offers four complementary services: delivery, advice, training and sale of material solutions.
Its objective is to improve quality of life in the city and reduce the negative externalities of freight transport by promoting the use of bicycles over vans and light trucks, and covering the first and last mile of delivery.
Created in 2013 among the Brussels sprouts with Olivier de Brouwer and Sébastien Morvan, the Brussels Beer Project has the ambition of rewriting the codes and getting Brussels moving, to get away from the image of Belgium as a dusty beer museum.
Its teams brew a new craft beer every week, but first sound out the desires of its ever-growing and increasingly diverse community.
The microbrewery now sees things in macro terms, with the opening of a brand new brewery along the canal in Anderlecht.
Invest Award: Naki Power or energy sharing
The size of the portable battery market was estimated at between $6.8 billion and $17.41 billion in 2019. In addition, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for this market has been forecast at between 3.4% and 18.4% between 2020 and 2027.
Naki Power (or Mobile Power Solutions) promotes a collaborative economy, based on sharing goods rather than buying them. The start-up allows everyone to fully enjoy the use of their phone, an object that has become indispensable in our daily lives, by easily recharging their phone, without losing mobility, using portable battery stations located throughout the city.
Each external battery is used to its maximum capacity, thousands of times, by several hundred people.
The concept, originally from Shanghai, was imported to Belgium by Zaccaria Aghemio and Tim Rucquoi-Berger, who decided to set up a new company in Brussels. The team is currently divided between China, Berlin and Brussels.
Founded in 2014 by bio-entrepreneurs Guillaume Wegria and Dr Juan Carlos Cabrera, Fyteko creates biostimulants and biomolecules to improve crop yields and protect them from abiotic stress. These natural molecules allow plants to better withstand heavy rainfall and drought.
Fyteko expanded into the African market in 2020 despite the health crisis. It continued its expansion to France and Ukraine (before the war) in 2021 and plans to double its sales forecast and reach a turnover of 1 million euros in Europe, Ukraine, Latin America and Africa by the end of 2022.
PermaFungi is a social cooperative based in Brussels that recycles a type of urban waste - coffee grounds - to create several products, namely organic oyster mushrooms, natural fertiliser and ecodesign.
In late 2019, just before the health crisis, PermaFungi's very continuity was called into question. The cause was a structural dependence on a professional integration subsidy and governance that had become inadequate. As a result, the company made several historic decisions:
Petite Empreinte is a micro-enterprise dedicated to children's fashion. At the helm is Elisabeth Higuet, a former teacher who wanted to be part of a sustainable and meaningful post-Covid-19 dynamic.
The heart of the project lies in the idea of unearthing "undesirable" textiles - those that are no longer in fashion and those that are discontinued - to make unique, upcycled garments.
The Petite Empreinte project is also, on a small scale, a desire to relocate production, promote "handmade" and allow each consumer to personalise their children's clothes according to their wishes.
