The French city of Grenoble, one of Europe’s major research and innovation hubs,gathered up to launch its first massive tech event, Tech&fest.
The event is took place place at the AlpExpo centre on February 1-2 and was themed around six areas:
●Tech and electronics industry
● Innovative solutions for businesses
● Energy, mobility, and the environment
● Space race
● Workplace quality of life, and the job market of the future
● Leisure and sports
Keynote speakers included SpaceX Material Engineering VP Charles Kuehmann and Euro2Moon General Secretary Bertrand Baratte. They discussed the latest developments in the race to Mars and the Moon, ahead of a year packed with missions.
One of the most ambitious start-ups at the event was Spartan, a Marseille-based company that developed inflatable habitats for missions in space and underwater.
One of them is called Eurohab, and “is the only Lunar camp-base that fits within medium-sized landers, such as the ISA Argonaut,” founder Peter Weiss told Euronews Next.
“We hope it will help carry to the Moon the first European astronauts before 2030”.
Green energy was also a crucial topic in Grenoble.
A “Decarbonisation Village” presented thirty solutions to help businesses cut their footprint through innovative packaging, design, and recycling, as well as AI.
ROSI Solar, a Grenoble company, showed how to minimise the impact of solar panels by reusing raw materials and recovering high-purity silicon and silver, which are usually lost at the end of a solar panel lifecycle.
“We recycle over 95 per cent of a panel after it’s dismissed, as well as materials used in its production process,” ROSI’s General Manager Antoine Chalaux told Euronews Next.
“The market has grown exponentially over the past two decades, and yet recycling activities are still not good enough. Most new panels are currently manufactured in China, Europe needs to become more self-sufficient, and our work is hopefully a step in that direction”.
Hydrogen and nuclear energy owned an important panels too, including one about mini nuclear reactors, which explained their energy, fuel-saving, and production benefits.
Tech&Fest was mainly open to business and start-up professionals.
