The 12th Innovation Camp organised by non-profit association, Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg (JEL), and the European Investment Bank (EIB) brought together 50 16 to 19 year olds from 17 Luxembourg high schools, to seek and improvise solutions to a business challenge put to them as groups.
Without prior notice of the challenge, the groups had to give free rein to their creativity, work together as a team and respect deadlines in the competition against the others all in a single day.
The challenge put to them was to imagine a food that exploits the protein potential of insects as a substitution for our usual foods from animals or plants. How can we change our eating habits by 2035.
For the EIB it was important to address this issue because future generations, of which these young people are part, will have to change their consumption patterns. The current model overloads the planet's natural resources and is not sustainable in the long term. As for the students, they were captivated by the theme and all the groups proposed solutions and products able to convince future generations of the benefits of insect consumption as an alternative to our current diet
The teenagers worked under supervision by agro-industry engineers, Antoine Pajot and Sébastien Collot, and an EIB economist, Eva Krampe.
At the end of the day, the 10 teams presented their projects to the general public and tried to convince the jury made up of the following members from the EIB, Shiva Dustdar, Sophie Billion, Jean-Marc Martin, and Guy Clausse, former Dean of the EIB Institute.
Francisco de Paula Coelho, Dean of the EIB Institute, recalled the innovative and enriching aspect of an Innovation Camp. Working as a team, experiencing a stressful situation, having to respect a deadline or making a presentation in front of an audience are lessons that will be useful to them in professional life. This experience makes it possible to develop the "soft skills" that are essential when you start your career in the world of work.
Stéphanie Damgé, Director of Jonk Entrepreneur in Luxembourg, congratulated the students on their work and underlined the twofold mission of the non-profit association, which is to develop an entrepreneurial culture among young people and to better prepare them for the world of work.
During the award ceremony, the jury members highlighted the quality of the various projects and the good presentations of the students who surprised by their professionalism and comfort to about a hundred people.
The first prize was won by the "ReSect" project, which offered a highly nutritive 100% organic protein powder based on grasshoppers. The ingenuity of their idea was based on the concept of circular economy. A large part uses unsold food waste to feed grasshoppers. Once their product is created and packaged it would be resold in supermarkets. The team consisted of Julie Hoffmann, Gianni Piccatti, Felix Glesener, Delija Talevic and Lou Wauthij.
The second prize was awarded to the project "Doori Restaurant", whose concept consisted in discovering an insect kitchen by offering cooking classes and thematic evenings around this subject. The team consisted of Emma Renders, Damir Babbacic, Alain Hippert, Ben Rieth and Samuel Tavernier.
The team that won the third prize is called "Bug Bite" and was composed of Angelika Hoffmann, Anne Noel, Fabienne Rausch, Sagar Rangram and Alexander Zenatello. They proposed insect-based bars mixed with fruits to have different tastes.
