Team VSycle wins the 2023 Belgian BISC-E Competition

The 2023 competition started with the 'From Trash to Treasure' Kick-off Event on 3 March where multiple student teams pitched ideas and met up with like-minded student-entrepreneurs. This event was followed by an intensive coaching to further develop their ideas and pitching skills.

The Finals took place at the Vlaanderen Circulair event: 'bioeconomie: van ambitie naar actie' where the teams had the unique opportunity to pitch their ideas to a professional jury and an audience of policymakers, entrepreneurs and academics. Team VSycle won gold and will represent Belgium at the BISC-E European Finals in September. Of course, all of the contestants are winners and clearly have a bright future ahead of them. That's why we would like to present them all here:

Team Vsycle

Team VSycle clearly impressed the jury with their sprayable antifreeze product based on antifreeze proteins to protect blossoms against (spring) frost. They won 1000 euros + a ticket to the European finals in september. They combined protein engineering, synthetic biology and machine learning to design novel protein biomaterials.

Team Circulo

Second place was for the engineers of Team Circulo. Their concept is to use a connection of two different hydroponic systems for the cultivation of tomato and lettuce. The nutrients are supplied by manure from trout aquaculture. All this is automated in every possible way. This is how they arrive at an aquaponics system. The team was rewarded with 500 euros.

Team Sludge

Finally,  Team Sludge made a nice pitch about durable treatment to make textiles water-repellent. Using alginates that they extract from sewage sludge. With this, they replace the PFAS that are otherwise often used in water-repellent textiles. They were rewarded with 250 euros.