The webinar is jointly organized by Swissnex in China and Science and Technology Office Seoul at Embassy of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea. Four startups working on plastic and food waste are invited to present and pitch their projects.
Waste increases in sync with the world’s population and wealth, causing landfills to reach capacity. The waste of today is the resource of tomorrow. Recovering and reusing materials is key to reducing pollution and protecting natural resources. Our four speakers from China, South Korea and Switzerland are experts on how to minimize organic and plastic waste and smartly treat it as a resource to improve efficiency, lower cost and reduce human’s impact on the environment. The aim is to smartly recycle and reuse waste, converting it into energy or safely returning it to the environment, as sustainable as possible.
Learn in this joint-webinar, how startups are pioneering in turning today’s organic and plastic waste into a resource for tomorrow, contributing to the creation of a circular economy, where waste materials are no longer simply thrown away, but are retained and re-used as future resource. Post-consumer waste could become a valuable revenue stream and fuels new markets in this circular economy. The Q&A session allows interaction between the audience and each startup.
Event Rundown
*China Time (GMT+8)
15:00 – 15:05 Opening
(Dr. Felix Moesner – Science Consul & CEO, Swissnex in China)
15:05 – 15:15 A Sustainable Circular Economy for PET Plastic
(Dr. Samantha Anderson – Founder & CEO, DePoly)
15:15 – 15:25 Biodegradable Polymer as a Solution to Plastic Waste Issues
(Yuanbin Bai – Vice President, Bluepha)
15:25 – 15:35 Decomposing ethylene and microorganisms to reduce food waste
(Sunyoung Lee – Founder & CEO, PureSpace)
15:35 – 15:45 The benefits of measuring and monitoring your resources
(Naomi MacKenzie – Co-founder, KITRO)
15:45 – 15:55 Q&A
15:55 – 16:00 Closing Remarks
(Dr. Alessandra Apicella – Head of Science and Technology Office, Embassy of Switzerland in the Republic of Korea)
Speakers
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Bio
Samantha Anderson
Founder & CEO at DePolyDr. Samantha Anderson began her career in Canada where she obtained a Masters at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She moved to Switzerland in 2015 and obtained her doctorate at EPFL within the LSMO group studying MOFs for new applications. In 2019, she launched a spin off from EPFL, DePoly SA, which focuses on the chemical recycling of PET and others plastics.
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Bio
Yuanbin Bai
Vice President at BluephaMr. Yuanbin Bai is an alumni of Tsinghua university, he joined Bluepha on beginning of 2018 as vice president. He takes the lead in business development. In 2019, he successfully established the strategic partnership with Sinochem (a Fortune 500 integrated operator in oil and chemical industry)
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Bio
Sunyoung Lee
Founder & CEO at PureSpaceSunyoung is a founder of PureSpace. She is an alumni of Seoul National University in Business and has a career in finance sector. She has decided to establish a tech-based startup to help reduce food waste and is in charge of leading the business development of PureSpace.
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Bio
Naomi MacKenzie
Co-founder at KITROWith experience working in the food and beverage industry both in kitchens and service Naomi witnessed every day the enormous amount of edible food that is being thrown away. This has led her to commit herself to reducing the avoidable food waste in this sector. The environmental impact that KITRO could have inspires her to push it to its full potential and leave a positive footprint. The idea behind KITRO originated during Naomi’s educational studies at the Ecole de hôtelière de Lausanne.
