EIC GHG Synergy Stories: When EIC beneficiaries University of Gothenburg & Swiss Vault collaborate for the greener good
The European Innovation Council (EIC), within the Greenhouse Gas Programme (GHG), enables and supports valuable matchmaking opportunities between EIC beneficiaries and business partners to achieve sustainable growth. Resulting from the Co-creation Peer-to-Peer (1st cohort) initiative in the summer of 2021, EIC beneficiaries the University of Gothenburg and Swiss Vault established positive collaborative efforts to further build upon their innovative use of nanotechnology to build low E-waste electronic data storage for the betterment of society.
The EIC GHG Programme provides EIC beneficiaries access to support services and expertise using co-creation activities that empower innovative initiatives. That’s what happened at the 1st cohort of the Co-creation Peer-to-Peer in the summer of 2021, where the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the company named Swiss Vault established a fruitful partnership.
Swiss Vault is a Swiss-based company that designs and builds economic data storage systems, owning the vision to disrupt the economics of data management and enable organisations to save and access every piece of data forever – with high privacy.
The University of Gothenburg is one of the largest universities in Northern Europe, with many research and centres of expertise that span several academic disciplines. Moreover, they’re environmentally certified and work actively toward sustainable development. Therefore, present at the EIC GHG event was their research group of the Department of Physics.
Let us share their adventures during this co-creation journey.
When asked about the undertaken interactions at the time with the company, Alexandre Dmitriev (Professor of Physics at the University of Gothenburg) recalled how the process occurred between the two entities:
“Our main role is doing research, teaching, and outreaching society. When we heard about the co-creation opportunity from the EIC’s GHG Programme we jumped on it – especially because we run projects related to sustainability that are linked with nanotechnology, which is our main subject of research. Therefore, it was the perfect opportunity to connect with potential industries or policymakers. We ended up doing so and connected with Swiss Vault.”
Bhupinder Bhullar (Co-founder & CEO at Swiss Vault) stated:
“We focus our business on sustainable data. There’s misinformation regarding the amount of energy being spent on data storage. With data growing exponentially, we need to be more efficient at the energy level. Questions like ‘How much are we consuming?’, ‘How much are we constructing in terms of data centres which need a lot of concrete?’, ‘Can we reduce the construction requirements’, and ‘Can we reduce the electronic waste?’ are things we focus on. That’s why participating at the GHG event allowed us to meet Alexandre and start exploring synergies and mutual common ground.”
In addition, both reiterated that developing such an important collaboration with each other is a way of further developing the sustainability side of their products.
Alexandre explained: “Our contribution revolves around bringing in the optical sensors that identify materials that aren’t necessarily only for recycling – for example, it could be for corrosion monitoring or biomedical diagnostics. We build small nanoscale sensors that are elaborate to create and are built on advanced science but simple to use. Our research is ongoing, so approaching Bhupinder (and Swiss Vault) to further build on it was the evident step. During these conversations, we noticed how big of a problem E-waste recycling is, and while we were looking for plastics and paper, we thought of adapting the sensors to E-waste recycling as well.
Then we faced questions related to how to know which types of materials are better to work with and how to identify them, plus what is the process flow of recycling them. Which led us to realise the high complexity of the question and made us involve a third party to help us – BiotaTec. They were suggested by the GHG team and are an innovative startup that is developing next-generation rapid biomining solutions for critical raw materials from low-grade ores, tailings, and wastes. They’re at the forefront of developing this type of innovation, which is currently being done at a smaller scale, which made them the perfect fit for what we were trying to achieve.”
“Having said that, it ended up being an eye opener how a high-performance and broadly demanded technology created in a controlled lab environment doesn’t necessarily directly translate into industry-scale prototypes. That’s why we’re further developing it and envisioning a strategy to bring it to the ‘real world’. Being a lab-scale research production and figuring out how to bring it to users is typically a step called the Death Valley of Innovation – you have the knowledge and the lab-scale product but to translate it into something actual users want is labour-hungry and expensive, but also makes it exciting.”, Alexandre added.
While Bhupinder further elucidated: “We first met and were brought together at the EIC GHG Co-creation Peer-to-Peer (1st cohort). At the time, I pointed out during our conversation that data is growing exponentially, due to for example the growth in self-driving cars and digitalisation in healthcare, and the consequence is that this data needs to be put somewhere. The scale of the problem is that we’re growing like 400 or 500% in the next couple of years, however, people aren’t aware of the consequences of having to put that data somewhere. Data storage servers are made of a high amount of metal, precious metals, and other components and create a massive amount of electronic waste at the end of life. This is already problematic with approximately 65 billion dollars of raw materials every year that are being placed into landfills because of improper recycling. That’s why we feel we can bring a lot of value through our collaboration. We will engineer a new methodology that allows those who make electronic gadgets to build Zero-e-Waste products. The methodology will use the nanosensor technology and the protocols that we develop with electronic recyclers. We focus primarily on the high-tech data storage electronics because, as previously explained, it’s a massive and growing problem.”
Positive impact enabled by the European Innovation Council
As for positive intakes of attending the EIC GHG Co-creation Peer-to-Peer (1st cohort) initiative, both were clear on that. Alexandre referred that:
“Without it, we wouldn’t be able to have the ongoing collaboration with Swiss Vault. As I mentioned, we weren’t looking into the e-waste recycling area, and were just looking locally in Sweden but more toward the plastics and cardboard sectors. Therefore, the EIC’s GHG initiative gave us a broader perspective and allowed us to access the industrial context, which is the Holy Grail for academics – connecting to the ‘real world’, with producers, recyclers, etc. That’s why this programme completely changed my view on how academics can participate in key initiatives alongside industry people. Another major impact of it is being able to give back more to society via the efforts in this collaboration because we use taxpayers’ money to produce knowledge. This collaboration makes very good use of that knowledge, applying it to potentially solving an extremely important societal challenge of living sustainably. That’s exactly what the GHG programme did for us – as ‘blue-sky’ academics.”
Bhupinder shared the same feelings: “Without the EIC’s leadership and direction, our collaboration wouldn’t be possible. It’s a big help to receive direction on how to come together because we know that these types of initiatives are important and there’s also top-level support. It also gave us momentum and energy around building low E-waste electronic data storage products. Our collaborative synergy was possible due to the EIC GHG initiative.”
With the current collaboration in place for building low E-waste electronic data storage products, which was possible thanks to the EIC GHG Programme, both parties will carry on their efforts in this and continue advancing positively with their collaboration.
About the University of Gothenburg
The University of Gothenburg is a multidisciplinary university that dates back to 1891, with eight faculties and 38 departments. It has a large number of research and centres of expertise that span across several academic disciplines. These disciplines serve as a meeting point for students, researchers, and representatives from the commercial, industrial, and public sectors. Around 49.000 students and 6.000 staff study and work here, making it one of the largest universities in Northern Europe. The research on nanophotonics at the Department of Physics studies light-matter interactions at the nanoscale applied to advanced solar cells, nanosensors and solar energy management.
About Swiss Vault
Swiss Vault has the best-in-class solution for the storage of large data. Industries including genomics, Telecommunications, Seismic, and Astronomy require an exceptional amount of data storage as well as intensive data access and analysis operations. Our unique hardware design and software setup ensure rapid analysis, with secure long-term storage at very low energy consumption.
About the EIC Business Acceleration Services
This opportunity is brought to you by the EIC Business Acceleration Services. To explore other opportunities to connect with the largest corporates in Europe, keep an eye on our events page.
About the EIC GHG Programme
With the EIC GHG programme, part of the Business Acceleration Services, the EIC offers its beneficiaries a dedicated GHG tool, the GHG Badges & CO2 Neutral Label initiative, and further resources.
In addition, co-creation activities with corporates, industrial associations, regions in carbon transition and other EIC beneficiaries are taking place on a regular basis.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.