As part of the SET Award 2019, the top 100-ranked start-ups who applied for the SET Award were rewarded the opportunity to participate and showcase as part of the Innovation Hub at the 24th World Energy Congress (WEC24) 2019 in Abu Dhabi. Sponsored by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, this incredible opportunity includes travel and accommodation expenses, and a showcase space for the SET100 at the congress.
In the lead up to WEC24, we asked the participating SET100 start-ups to answer a few questions to provide potential partners the opportunity to learn more about them and to also help other start-ups learn from their experiences. We thank them for their work toward the global energy transition and for sharing with us the following insights.
#SET100 Start-up: Glowee (France)
Glowee aims at reshaping the urban landscape thanks to a disruptive system of biological light. We are tackling the ecological, economical and health-related issues carried out by electricity for lighting by offering new luminous energetic services based on bioluminescence.
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Traveling, pitching, partaking in meetings, and networking requires considerable time and effort. Other than perhaps being given a blank check, what is the best case scenario or result you as a start-up hope to get out of participating in initiatives such as the SET platform and the Innovation Hub at the 24th World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi?
Glowee is looking forward to participate to the 24th World Energy Congress for two main reasons: 1) democratize bioluminescence as an alternative solution to traditional lighting at an international level; 2) Meet new prospects and clients and go home with new exciting projects.
Given the stage of your start-up and your particular focus/sector/technology, what is one challenge that you have overcome or lesson that you have learned that may be valuable to other similar start-ups?
One of the many lessons we have learned these past few years is how important it is to create a wide ecosystem and community of people and professionals when you are disrupting an entire industry, so that you are not the only one spreading the word.
What is one of the main obstacles or regulations that you have had to overcome prior to, or in preparation of market entry into your given business environment?
The main obstacle comes from the fact that we are not just replacing a product with another, is it not about incremental innovation, we are trying to change mindsets and the way people conceive light, from production to consumption and end-of-life. Therefore, we need to address the entire value chain and find intermediary steps to implement our technology before reaching the targeted “mass-market”.
Thanks for reading and thanks again to Glowee. More information about them can be found here: https://www.glowee.eu/
More about the SET100, including a full list of each SET100 start-up can be found here.
