This year’s winners can now continue to develop their innovative ideas for the benefit of organic farming and electrification.
On Wednesday 8 November, the Otto Mønsted Foundation was once again delighted to announce the winners of the talent award The Bright Idea 2023. The award was presented on the main stage during the Nordic region’s largest deep-tech fair, Digital Tech Summit, in Øksnehallen.
This year marks the fifth time that the foundation has honoured and awarded some of the most talented researchers and entrepreneurs with a total sum of DKK 500,000. Recognising that young entrepreneurs find it difficult to raise funds when their ideas are still in the early stages of development, the foundation wants to get these promising teenage ideas to accelerate faster for the benefit of society and Danish trade and industry.
The Bright Idea 2023 award was presented in two categories – the best late-stage idea and the best early-stage idea. The winners in the two categories each received DKK 250,000 for their ideas.
Sustainable and scalable winning idea promotes organic plant breeding
The winner of the best idea in the late-stage category was Ida C. Nielsen, PhD student at the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University and founder of the company AgroAnt.
Ida C. Nielsen and AgroAnt have developed a method and business model for using ants as an ecological, sustainable and time-saving alternative to chemical pesticides in agriculture. Through documented research and trials, an installed ant nest with a patented feeding system has proven to be a versatile tool for controlling both pests and crop diseases. By nature’s own little six-legged force, most fruit, berry and vegetable growers will not need to supplement with other control methods. For example, ants have been shown to reduce the most serious disease in apple production, apple scab, by more than 61% while more than doubling the number of completely disease-free apples.
The jury’s motivation:
The winning idea contributes to the important fight against the current biodiversity crisis by combining the use of nature’s own resources with a new but simple and proven technology. The idea has the potential to significantly reduce the number of pesticides used in orchards. Furthermore, the developed concept, which requires limited maintenance and effort, can contribute to a significant and lasting effect with low costs for the individual farmer. This idea is sustainable, scalable and inspiring.
Winning idea solves significant electrification challenges
The winner in the early-stage category was Hongbo Zhao, Postdoc at the Department of Energy at Aalborg University.
Hongsbo Zhao has shown impressive insight into electrification, which is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Electrification relies on magnetic components that have so far been made from petrochemical materials and have limited performance. With the development of his project ‘MagiC’, the prize winner has demonstrated the invention of the next generation of magnetic components based on ceramic materials that are more flexible, have improved performance and a higher degree of sustainability than existing magnetic components.
The jury’s motivation:
Hongsbo Zhao demonstrates a remarkable insight into one of the great challenges of our time – sustainable electrification of the global community. By tackling key issues in the green transition, the winner paves the way for a new generation of ceramic materials with significantly better performance, flexibility and sustainability than current magnetic components. In addition, the use of magnetic ceramics has the potential to reduce our current dependence on scarce resources.
Green transition sets the agenda
Once again this year, the foundation has experienced great interest in The Bright Idea and both the number and quality of the submitted ideas have fully lived up to the jury’s expectations. And the common thread in many of the applications is again this year – green.
“It is very gratifying to see the weight of this year’s winning ideas, which in their own way address some crucial challenges in our everyday lives regarding the environmental impact of plant breeding and the need for electrification in such a convincing way. This is exactly what Denmark needs if we want to be at the forefront as a pioneer and supplier of green solutions,” says Nis Alstrup, Chairman of the Otto Mønsted Foundation.
About the award
Candidates for ‘The Bright Idea’ are generally bachelor/graduate students, PhD students, postdocs and entire research teams, typically affiliated with one of Denmark’s eight universities.
All ideas submitted this year have been judged by a jury that has assessed each idea based on excellence in thought, communication, analysis and documentation. In addition, an idea must demonstrate business vision and understanding to support the foundation’s charter and create value for Danish trade and industry. The jury also assesses the likelihood that the idea can be implemented and the value and importance of the idea for Danish business.
This year’s jury
All this year’s nominations are assessed by a jury consisting of:
Kigge Hvid, partner, JA studio
Ole Kring, partner, EIFO (lifescience)
Bjarne Kjær Ersbøll, Professor DTU Compute and member of the board of the Otto Mønsted Foundation
Jesper Højberg Christensen, adjunct professor at CBS
Nis Alstrup, Chairman of the Board of the Otto Mønsted Foundation
Karina Bergstrøm Larsen, Director, Q-Consulting
Christian Brix Tillegreen, Senior Business Developer, Bioinnovation Institute
Nigel Edmondson, CEO, MADE
Vibeke Svendsen, board member of the Otto Mønsted Foundation