“En un periodo de tiempo convulso y ante una empresa muy focalizada en el corto plazo, HiT Barcelona es una iniciativa potente para todos aquellos que están involucrados en los procesos de soporte a la innovación en las empresas” declaró Jordi Serret, director ejecutivo de ACC1Ò del departamento de Innovación de la Generalitat de Cataluña. infoambiental.es

“La cimera mundial HiT Barcelona ha demostrat el valor afegit d’una fórmula única que ha unit en un mateix esdeveniment les eines i conceptes necessaris per innovar en l’àmbit empresarial juntament amb un punt de trobada que ha reunit als millors projectes empresarials i a inversors en busca de bones idees.” acordestrategic.cat

“Are water utilities susceptible to innovation? Not many. But they exist. “

Ashdec. Renewable phosphate fertilities
UFBAF. Air Water treatment Attero.
Electronic Waste recycling.
Neosensors. Quality liquid sensors.
Epuramat. Waste water treatment.

Moderator: Helge Daebel

Carlos Campos

• Power and telecom companies know how their customers use their service. Water industry still needs to know how and for what their customers use water.
• Increasing environmental standards means increasing energy demand.
• Waste water treatment process smell is a huge problem, specially for those plants placed in urban environments like Barcelona.
• People is not only sensitive to water quality but also to water quality changes.

Peter Holme

• Water industry is a mix of different industries with different cultures. The big challenge for us is to mix effectively high technology with low technology.
• Increase of water price could be a trigger to stimulate innovation.

Victor D.Scutaru

• During the last 7 years: 200 investments. 16 cleantech. 3 Water.
• Water utilities are usually focused in cost and energetic efficiency solutions.
• Water sector is dominated by public utilities something that makes private founding participation difficult.
• There are opportunities in water sector:  for example, we don’t know how to measure ground water availability; usually we need to detect and eliminate not regular water contaminants; detect and repair leaks in a non invasive way.
• Some oportuinites require long access time that VC are not usually willing to assume.

Extract by Jordi Sotorra and Daniel Martínez

The Plan Puyhuan model applies business and entrepreneurial approaches, bringing together public and private investors, to accelerate scalable sustainable solutions, together with great business opportunities in rural areas of developing nations - integrating the triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental value into its DNA like a triple helix of change.

Plan Puyhuan delivers a new model in planning & managing sustainable human development, with intensive use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). This model is replicable on a global scale, achieving local sustainability in 5 years, improving the quality of life, whilst delivering significant ROI for investors.

We can no longer afford to neglect the populations in rural areas of developing nations, as their life conditions remains a breeding ground for unrest and threatens (inter)national security.

Impoverished rural communities across the developing world suffer from a lack of local capacity for managing development, and from the failure of governments, international institutions and the private sector to integrate their rural development efforts.  But by using the know-how and technological means that already exist today, we can generate quantum leaps of change to bridge the current social and digital divide.
GROUP PUYHUAN is an international network of leading experts in Management, Healthcare, Education, Tourism, Technology etc, creating Plan Puyhuan, which:

•    Places the citizen at the centre of analysis to research, design, and implement one strategic planning model in a chosen rural area, to deliver integrated human sustainable development.

•    Brings together public, institutional and private sector investment with a unified stakeholder vision of the future for the community.

•    Uses technological advancements and Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to create seismic change, through innovations in areas such as; educational and healthcare systems, as well as increasing local productivity.

IMPACT
•    Rural citizens are empowered to become active participants and valuable human resources in the global economy, acquiring the capacity for planning and managing sustainable development.

•    The Private Sector achieves higher ROI across the triple bottom line from social responsibility impact and/or the participation from new business opportunities identified.

COLLABORATION
Deltron Computers, Gilat Communications, USAID, IMF, ENDESA, Project Development International Fund, Ashoka Fellowship

Apeiron is a seed-stage chemical company established to commercialize break-through  metathesis catalysts developed and patented in Polish Academy of Sciences. The company introduces various kinds of catalysts for production of high-value specialty chemicals and advanced polymers. Metathesis technology is an important contributor to the emerging “green technology” movement and has just started to be adopted in industry.

Market size
Apeiron’s targeted market is worth ca. US$1.5 billion. Of this market, according to Chemical & Engineering News, the enormous growth potential will come in metathesis catalysts, which until Nobel Prize in 2005 was mainly a domain of academic applications.
Product
Apeiron’s high performance catalysts allow to shorten the reaction time, lower waste production, simplify purification steps thus enable more efficient and inexpensive production of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biomedical materials, automotive components and many more.
Apeiron’s products are unique on a global scale. Apeiron is the only who developed the efficient catalyst that enable to carry out the reaction in water media, one of the most desirable by the industry. Some of the products are already worldwide patent protected and a few other are pending.
Customers
(i)pharmaceutical industry (ii)polymers sector; (iii)fine chemical; (iv)academia and R&D.
Competitors and entry barriers
Market is covered by only 4 players with dominance of US based company Materia. High specialization, patent protected products, limited number of research groups and deep know-how need makes this area very difficult to entry.
Team
Radoslaw Calka, expert in management and marketing; Michal Bieniek, PhD, co-author of 3 international patents in the area of metathesis catalysts; Lukasz Gulajski, possess strong background in laboratory and production management; Prof. Karol Grela, expert in the field of metathesis catalysts underscored for his input and contribution in the area of metathesis catalyst in justification of the Nobel Prize in 2005, Jacek Blonski, expert in marketing and early-stage financing;

Soxcell Energy provides an innovative fuel cell technology, which promises to give cheap, clean energy on-demand to households and small factories.

Like all fuel cells. Soxcell’s fuel cell is a clean electric generation device which converts hydrogen into electricity, producing only heat and water as its by-products.  However, Soxcell’s unique design uses tubular solid-oxide ceramic catalysts.  These are cheaper than platinum used in most fuel cells. The tubular shape also eliminates the complex seals used in other fuel cell designs and reduces fuel leakage cost.

Finally, the tubular design is easy to assemble, lowering manufacturing costs.  Soxcell expects that it will be able to deliver energy a $2.5 per watt, cheaper than other fuel sources like diesel generators, solar, wind, biofuels.  This makes it an ideal energy source for the 200 million people, factories, agricultural operations, and mining sites which do not have access to the power grid in Southeast Asia.
Soxcell Energy’s lead customers currently use diesel generators.  Soxcell’s fuel cell is much cheaper to run than a diesel generator and can recover the up-front investment in three years.  Soxcell will sell direct, identifying first-movers in Thailand who will particularly benefit from the clean, silent, reliable energy generated by the Soxcell fuel cell.  After Thailand, Soxcell will expand to the rest of Southeast Asia, where many people and business operations must operate off-grid.
Soxcell’s business plan forecasts sales to reach $10.5 million by the fifth year, with a net profit of $2.6 million.  At these levels, this project would have a net present value of $3.4 million at a 30% discount rate, or an IRR of approximately 89%.  Soxcell is seeking interested investors with relevant experience in the energy sector, who can actively help the company reach its goal of providing clean, affordable, off-grid energy on a widespread basis.

surface active solutions (Grangemouth, Scotland) founded by Mark Zwinderman & John Harrison develops and supplies ground breaking Microemulsion technology for the oil industry. These specialised chemical systems have introduced liquid nanotechnology into the oil exploration & production process.

The oil industry creates in its day-to-day activities significant volumes of oil contaminated hazardous waste. An entire multibillion dollar waste management industry has grown around this issue involving complex logistics and environmentally sensitive disposal routes. Waste management is a crucial part of the exploration process. The stacking up of waste on rigs delays the drilling process and can be up to 65% of the total cost of drilling a well ($50M).

By employing SAS technology companies can reduce rig time, re-use oil and safely dispose  clean water and clean solids back to sea. SAS products are used throughout the process of oil exploration from the drilling of the well to the recovery of oil from refinery waste thus reducing the costs, minimizing environmental impacts and decreasing operational risks. This allows oil companies to comply and exceed increasingly stringent environmental regulations across the world.

SAS chemicals systems and engineering solutions have been used globally in the field and resulted in rig time reductions of 50 – 90% and reductions in drilling waste produced from 70 – 98%.

As a result, for the first time in history, SAS Microemulsion technology enables the oil industry to prevent and/or eliminate generation of oil contaminated waste onsite at the well negating the need for
complex transportation logistics.

The SAS product range consists of proprietary chemistry products in conjunction with engineering systems capable of delivering tailor made solutions to our clients. This is protected by a wholly owned patent portfolio consisting of four granted patents and nine patents pending. The company has been profitable for the past two years.

Gina Domanig is the Conference Chairperson of the CleanTech Innovation Marketplace, a combination-day of global conference, exhibitions and unique business tournament to give investors and entrepreneurs high-value insights into the very latest ideas and drivers behind clean technology innovation around the world.

Gina Domanig is responsible for the venture capital activities of Emerald Technology Ventures AG in the fields of energy, materials, water, and nutrition. As the Managing Partner, she is based at the firm’s Zurich office, formerly SAM Private Equity which was spun out of SAM Sustainable Asset Management in 2007.

Emerald Technology Ventures AG is a venture capital firm specializing in early and expansion stage investments. The firm seeks to investment in companies in the clean technology sectors with a focus on energy, materials, and water and nutrition sector. It invests in companies based in Europe and North America.

She has over 20 years of international business experience including banking, M&A, strategic development, and venture capital. Mrs. Domanig’s industry experience includes medical technology, environmental technology, industrial electronics, advanced materials, and power generation.

Gina. Domanig received M.B.A. degrees from Thunderbird in Arizona and ESADE in Barcelona and holds an M.I.M. and a B.A. in Finance.

The CleanTech Innovation Marketplace will be held next June 18th, 2009, incide the internacional congress HiT Barcelona.