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Plants compounds have been used for ages as food additives & flavors. Chemistry has offered solutions on the last 30 years to produce simple and low cost compounds, but some have been now considered as dangerous (glucose-fructose) and even toxic. Food safety and quality have been a big issue for consumers for which natural products demand is bombing. Food industry requires now innovative solutions to produce natural compounds at a competitive price with sustainable technologies but also to find natural solution to cope with obesity and diabetes for which they look responsible for. One of the most exciting solutions is in-vitro propagation of plants inside bioreactors. This field once too limited in yield or too expensive has reached new horizons thanks to Alkinnov’s technologies supported by a team of world renowned scientists and executed by a brilliant R&D team. Alkinnov, after having obtained exceptional results in Cosmetics, has improved its technological platform to enter the food additives & flavors markets. Its new bioreactor “Alkaburst 2.0” has been designed and patented to produce high volumes production where cost can be divided by a factor of 50 to first target unsuppliable natural expensive sweeteners & flavors. Indeed the performance of production yields can reach up to 1000 times the ones on soil today with room for improvement using A.I. and biostimulation. The project focuses on the development of a 100t/year pilot plant for 5 major food addition/flavors to reshape the consumption of the natural compounds in food. In addition, the technology has been validated for 70 other leaves, shoots & root varieties and has the potential to support in-vitro cultivation of any plant plant tissue, covering numerous applications in pharmaceuticals, fragrances, pest-control, phyto-protection and food additives, among others.

Voico is developing a noise cancelling technology that will reduce noise created from telephone conversations, and increase the confidentiality of telephone conversations. By implementing a sound cancelling unit in a telephone headset, Voico's technology will reduce the noise from the human voice spreading from the telephone conversation to the surroundings. Thus, those located near the telephone conversation will not be disturbed or be able to hear the conversation's content. In this way, a firms' employees operating in open plan offices will no longer suffer from noise created by their colleagues talking on the phone. By contributing to a better work environment through a lower level of disturbing noise, Voico's technology will help in decreasing stress and exhaustion among employees. Moreover, for those interested in ensuring a private conversation over the telephone, Voico's technology will also fulfil this purpose. The feasibility study concerns reducing technological risk through optimizing and developing a wearable test device for use in pilot tests, as well as development of a business model and a business plan for expanding into the European market.

Measuring the economic value of cultural sites and institutions poses challenges. Traditional economic impact studies have tended to value the market benefits of culture, such as the impacts on employment and gross value added. This ignores the important contribution that culture and cultural institutions play in people's lives. This value is harder to assess as market prices will not exist where cultural institutions/places are free to use or access. However an understanding of this is required for policy evaluation and investment decisions, and not valuing these benefits risks that the activities which generate them are under-appreciated. To further the evidence base in this area, the research is estimating the value of culture at four historic towns/cities and for four cultural institutions located within them (cathedrals or regional art galleries, for example). It will quantify in monetary terms the use values (the values that those who directly use the site put on being able to use them) and non-use values (including the value that non-users place on the sites' existence). The valuation estimates will be obtained using a methodology that meets the criteria required by the UK Government in its evaluation guidance and so will contribute to the evidence base for public investment in culture. The data used in the study will be collected through an online survey. Valuations will be estimated using a contingent valuation methodology, where those surveyed are asked to consider their valuation of the site/institution in the context of a hypothetical scenario that makes them meaningfully consider their valuation in monetary terms. For example, how much they might be prepared to pay to prevent the scenario of damage to a site. The research will also examine the capacity for benefits transfer (i.e. the extent to which values from particular sites can be robustly applied to value other sites), allowing the findings from the study to be potentially applied to other cultural sites. This will be assessed by analysing whether the values estimated are comparable within the sites in the analysis.

For decades, vertical take-off and landing aircrafts (VTOL) have seen their use limited to special-purpose & military applications. By 2017, companies like Lilium Aviation and others started showcasing prototypes of electric “flying cars”. The key problem with these prototypes is that they require an efficient & reliable electric propulsion technology to be able to lift off their payload of 1-2 people. This propulsion technology must also support transition from VTOL to linear flight, otherwise its energy consumption will not allow any useful applications. European Sustainable Propulsion brings to the market the first solution able to support the industrialization of VTOL development—an electric turbine technology with both static thrust for VTOL & dynamic thrust for linear flight. Apollo electric turbines are 2-4x more efficient than other electric ducted fans, support tilt-free transition from VTOL to linear flight, are compact and are designed to enable scalable distributed electric propulsion. Our unique innovation enables design of novel, much safer VTOL drones for operation in congested urban areas & on dangerous industrial sites, allowing us to commercialize it to both to the current nascent market of passenger VTOL manufacturers, as well as to the upcoming heavy-duty VTOL market. Our analysis shows the target markets for commercialization of Apollo of €13.75bn+ for passenger VTOLs and €690bn+ for heavy-duty drones in verticals such as oil & gas, construction, security & others. In 2017 we were featured in Wired as a refreshingly realistic technology among other VTOL & drone-enabling technologies. Athena, the 1st generation of Apollo family turbines, are now under testing in FR, US & CA. Japanese Fire & Disaster Management Agency has just signed the purchase order for it. By selling Apollo electric turbines to other VTOL drone manufacturers (short-term) & by building or own heavy-duty drones (long-term) we aim at €30m by 2022.