Throughout the school year, ‘Inventing the future ‘, an initiative of JA Europe and Arconic Foundation, exposes secondary school and VET students from France, Germany, Hungary and the UK to different issues and challenges related to material innovation in the manufacturing industry.
Arconic Foundation supports the Innovative Sustainability Business Idea Award as its mission is enhance education and improve the environmental sustainability of the communities in which it operates. The Innovative Sustainability Business Idea Award gave student companies from the four countries the chance to join an international competition and to develop and present innovative business ideas related to the topic of sustainability. 4 national winning teams, one per each country, participated to the online competition final on the 24th June 2021 after having competed against other teams at national level. They presented their work remotely in front of a jury composed by European Commission’s Dana Adriana Puia Morel, Women and Entrepreneurship Education Policy Strategist at DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs; Boeing’s Sebastian Tijl, Government Affairs Benelux and Nordics; Arconic Foundation’s Ryan Kish, VP and Treasurer; and Arconic’s Jasper van Zon, Communications Director, Europe and Asia.
The winning team from France was Mellon’Harp, a mini-company under the supervision of EPA-PACA based in Lorgues. Their product, BeeSafe, is an electric harp designed to eliminate the population of Asian hornets which constitute a plague to native bees.
