It took place between 11 and 17 of March 2024 in various locations across the EU, and comprised of:
– the high-level event, organised by the European Commission, in Brussels, on 13-14 March 2024
– more than 30 satellite events, organised by third party organisations all over Europe, to enable youth to take part in the Bioeconomy Changemakers Festival.
Marine Godaux (Director of European and International Affairs at AgroParisTech), Fernanda Thimoteo Azevedo Jorge and José Alberto Bolanos Zeas (both Bioceb students from cohort 3 - 2022/2024) attended the event at Brussels.
Gabriel Dauchot (AgroParisTech engineer student and Bioceb student from cohort 3 - 2022/2024) attended the "Matinale de la coopération agricole : bioéconomie" : "Mobilising young people towards a sustainable and cooperative bioeconomy" organised on March 11th at HUB BPI.
Fernanda Thimoteo Azevedo Jorge
"The Bioeconomy Changemakers Festival took place in Brussels on March 13-14 and I participated as a panelist in the session "Supporting young changemakers to develop and scale solutions". I was invited by the Biobased Industries Consortium (BIC) as member of the BioAroma team, the winner of the Bio-based Innovation Student Challenge (BISC-E 2023).
Me, Anastasyia, Aiganym and Nurdana (from Bioceb cohort 3, track 4) won this competition last year with our GLP project, comprising the biotechnological production of an aroma compound with a rose-like scent (2-phenylethanol) by yeast fermentation. Since we won this prize, we became BIC members and have been invited to participate in bioeconomy events to showcase our project and benefit from networking opportunities.
This panel at the Bioeconomy Changemakers Festival explored how different organizations and programs have supported the scaling-up of biobased solutions, from ideation to large-scale commercialization. For instance, the keynote speaker, Jens Nielsen, CEO from BioInnovation Institute (Denmark), showed how this institute has been driving innovation in life sciences by helping establish spin-out companies and accelerating start-ups from early-stages to venture capital acquisition. In addition, panelists from Fibenol and Infinite Roots mentioned how fundings from CBE JU and EIC fund (European Innovation Council), respectively, enabled building a first-of-its-kind wood biorefinery in Estonia and bringing to the market food products based on edible mushroom mycelium.
In the case of BISC-E, I highlighted how this competition has been fostering student entrepreneurship by paving the way for young researchers to translate scientific development into marketable and scalable solutions. I also emphasized how the competition and the prize have presented us with valuable opportunities for connecting with different bioeconomy stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, policy-makers, and potential clients, investors, and partners for R&D and business development. In this sense, BISC-E has been actively promoting youth engagement in the bioeconomy.
Besides the panel, the Festival as a whole was truly inspiring as it was organized by youth and for youth, aiming to engage younger generations as changemakers in the bioeconomy. The event was jointly organized by the European Comission and the Bioeconomy Youth Ambassadors, who I had the pleasure to meet again and discuss about their bioeconomy manifesto, a document reflecting the youth vision of the bioeconomy that was presented and handled to the European Comission during the event.
In summary, it was truly an enriching experience to be among such a diverse group of young people —researchers, entrepreneurs, farmers, activists, or policy-makers — all actively engaged in building a sustainable bioeconomy."
Gabriel Dauchot
"On March 11th 2024, the event ’Bioeconomy: Mobilizing Youth Towards a Sustainable and Cooperative Bioeconomy’ was organized by La Coopération Agricole at BPI the hub, the French public investment bank, in Paris. This event was part of the ’Bioeconomy Changemakers Festival’ week, under the auspices of the European Commission. I had there the opportunity to present my journey as a young engineer specialized in bioeconomy, particularly within AgroParisTech’s Biorefinery and Green Chemistry program and the European master’s programme Bioceb. I highlighted the cross-cutting, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral nature of these programs, demonstrating the diversity of profiles they shape in this rapidly expanding field. Additionally, I took this opportunity to emphasize the imperative of communication supported by rigorous studies on the environmental benefits and impacts of bioeconomy. It is crucial to examine all aspects of planetary boundaries. In this regard, the adoption of the PEF method - Product Environmental Footprint, recognized as the European Union standard, is essential."
Updated April 2024