Tag: #116

Thanks to an app people with disabilities can date on an equal footing. And soon the same could be true for wheelchair users - at work and at home. A Lithuanian startup has developed a mobile device, which moves people from a sitting to a standing position at the touch of a button. The equipment is self-balancing and controlled...

Sustainable toilet paper made from oranges and aloe vera is helping to seed flowers. Meanwhile sanitary towels and pantyliners can be manufactured using banana fibres. And now, a female-led startup in Berlin is making nappy liners and tampons from seaweed. Dried brown algae is ground into powder and an off-white substance extracted from it. It is free from heavy...

A glassy mousse-like mineral powder can insulate houses without using oil-based materials. Shoe soles, however, are still mainly composed of plastic. Enter a Canadian startup aiming to cushion our steps sustainably while recycling a precious resource: wine corks. After years of research, its product is now ready to hit the market. Both recycled corks and the waste from cork...

Waste from breweries is a breeding ground for sustainable livestock feed. But the methane produced by these animals during the digestive process has a significant impact on the environment. For a female-led startup in Hawaii, however, the solution lies in a particular species of red algae called Asparagopsis taxiformis (instead of kangaroo babies). According to tests conducted on livestock,...

Image analysis can find hidden ruins or save elephants’ lives. But that’s just the start. A female-led startup in Nairobi is using satellite images and artificial intelligence to strengthen the continent’s agriculture industry. After all, around 60% of sub-saharan Africa’s jobs are dependent on it - most of them smallholders significantly impacted by climate change. The machine-based image analysis...

Sweet coffee cups provide a solution to throwaway culture. Coffee grounds, meanwhile, are an effective substitute in the construction industry. And as a startup from Ukraine has recently proved, they have other uses too. In this case, as spectacle frames. The team collects the grounds from cafes in Kyiv. After they’ve been dried, the grounds are mixed with natural...