NOBALIS Demo Day on December 15th was the final event for the first edition of NOBALIS Entrepreneurship and Innovation Capacity Development Program (EICD) this fall. NOBALIS EICD program supports student and staff start-up and scale-ups in NOBALIS partner institutions. Program kicked off with an international virtual Hackathon for food, biotechnology and bioresources related start-up ideas. Best teams were selected for follow up sessions with mentors. Over a 3-month period teams worked on their business models, prepared marketing and funding plans, developed minimum viable products and learned pitching.

6 student and 2 staff teams demonstrated their ideas in the NOBALIS Demo Day. Teams had 3 minutes to pitch their idea to the jury. Student teams competed for a cash prize from BIA and for awards from each HEI. The teams in NOBALIS project had a mix of exciting ideas from app development and DNA processing for environmental monitoring to the valorization of food and coffee grounds, seaweed, canola, agricultural pests for the creation of various new food, feed and packaging products.

The first price went to student team Unwasted from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who worked on using coffee grounds for growing mushrooms.  Second place went to team KESE from Estonian University of Life Sciences who developed a protein bar from Canola. Third place went to team PowerFeed from Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technology, who were exploring developing protein from Spanish slug.