Reusing textile waste and residues and transforming them into furniture or products usually made from wood, such as skirting boards, floors or doors, thereby promoting textile recycling and reducing the felling of trees, was the concept defended by EcoWoodTex, a start-up formed by four young people that was awarded the grand prize yesterday by the jury of JUMP, a competition for new businesses organised by the Vila Nova de Famalicão City Council in partnership with UPTEC.
The winning project will now receive a prize of five thousand euros, a year's installation in the Famalicão Made IN incubators and support for business development.
The competition, which aims to promote an entrepreneurial culture of developing new business projects aimed at the green and digital transition, also honoured two other projects. Wise Dose, with a computer application that allows for the controlled introduction of anaesthesia in surgery, and PhosTech, with a new system for the advanced production of struvite from agricultural and industrial effluent treatment systems in the rural area of Vila Nova de Famalicão, second and third place were awarded 2,500 and 1,500 euros respectively. The jury also awarded an honourable mention to the Retex project, a platform for the collection and recovery of post-consumer textiles and clothing, based on Blockchain technology, gamification and multi-level marketing.
It should be noted that a total of 12 business ideas made it through to the final stage of the competition and were assessed by a jury made up of representatives from Caixa Agrícola, Grupo Medway and RNM, the brands that sponsored this edition of the new ideas competition, presented and assessed this Tuesday, 14 May, in an individual presentation of each of the final proposals.
The councillor for the Economy and Entrepreneurship of the Municipality of Famalicão, Augusto Lima, praised all the projects and encouraged the entrepreneurs "to trust in their ideas" and to work on developing their projects. "At Famalicão Made IN we have a support office to leverage these startups, also to attract new projects to the area, which we want to become more and more a creative area, enhancing Famalicão's entrepreneurial culture."
