11 consortia will design and develop innovations that are made from local (raw) materials in order to beat high costs and lower the footprint in the building and health sector.
The consortia are collaborations of companies based in the Netherlands with partners in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Uganda en South-Africa.
In many African countries there is an increasing urgency to design and innovate with locally available materials as the prices of raw materials are rising and materials are often imported and transported with increasing costs.
Efficient use of local materials
For both economic and environmental impact, it is key to make efficient use of local (raw) materials and to substitute imported (raw) materials with (cheaper) local (raw) materials. These materials can then be used in the design, development and engineering of sustainable
In March 69 consortia submitted an idea to develop solutions, 23 were selected to conduct a feasibility study. 11 out of these 23 consortia have now been selected to develop their innovations in the coming 2 years. They receive a maximum budget of € 200,000 for this.
In SBIR in Developing Markets competitions, projects are selected based on the following criteria:
- impact on the theme;
- innovation;
- quality of the project; and
- economic perspective.
Also co-creation and cooperation with local partners, the gender approach and the involvement of women in the innovations are taken into consideration.
Read the summaries of the selected projects.