Energy and Environment: Biocarbon Enginering, winner of the Hello Tomorrow Challenge start-up

BioCarbon Engineering, a British start-up, is the grand winner of the 2015 Hello Tomorrow Challenge. Its founder, Lauren Fletcher, a former NASA engineer, was granted 15,000 euros as winner of the Energy & Environment Track. As the all categories’ grand prize winner, he received an additional check for 100,000 euros. An outstanding opportunity to develop the company know-how in the field of drones serving reforestation. BioCarbon Engineering’s planting UAVs carry out precision planting activities, leading to high up-take rates, measure soil fertilization and can plant 10 seeds per minute. The aim: planting one billion trees per year…

This global startup competition has the mission to accelerate the most promising innovative technologies and entrepreneurs, helping them to rapidly reach their respective markets. This year, for its second edition, the Challenge received 3,600 applications from 98 countries compared to 1,200 applications in 2014. Initiated by Xavier Duportet, 27, PhD in Synthetic Biology from INRIA (France) and MIT (Boston, USA), the Hello Tomorrow association at the origin of the event aims at “bridging the gap between researchers, entrepreneurs and large corporations”. Long live this great federating initiative!