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Ateknea helps Is It Fresh to revolutionise the food logistics sector with EU funding

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Did you know that an average of 180kg of food is wasted per person per year in the EU? Or that a third of the food produced globally goes to waste? A large part of this figure can be attributed to the misconception that food is spoiled when it reaches its expiration date. Since 2011, Is It Fresh has been working to create wireless sensor technology that can measure actual product freshness in real time. With Ateknea’s help, they have been approved for Phase 2 level EU funding from the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme.

The start-up has developed technology that combines the methods of printed electronics, functional inks, and roll-to-roll manufacturing to come up with a sophisticated tag for a cost of less than 1 cent. It is cheap enough to be integrated into every type of food packaging and can wirelessly deliver information about the origin, freshness, and remaining life of the product inside. Thanks to the EU funding, this could allow the whole food supply chain to both track products with a unique ID and measure their actual freshness in real time, making informed decisions at every stage and vastly reducing food waste.

The technology will allow for more efficient – and more environmentally friendly – processing at every stage of the food value chain, from manufacturing to logistics, to retail, to consumer, with the potential for wide-ranging and significant improvements to the way in which we produce, distribute, and effectively manage food at a global scale.

EU funding for Is It Fresh

 Ateknea worked with Is It Fresh to:

  • Prepare the documentation that helped Is It Fresh to achieve approval for Phase 2 EU funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme.

And will now focus on the technological development of the project:

  • Delivering the source code and deploying a working system for the monitoring tool.
  • Providing an integrated and working Visual Inspection Tool able to detect any defects in the printed tags that could exclude them from being functional. This can include holes in a layer, dust particles, discontinuities, etc. The Visual Inspection Tool will be able to decide whether the tags must be discarded due to detected errors or, if the errors affect a non-critical area, they can still be used.

Ateknea and Is It Fresh will now work together on the development of the tool as well as its journey to market.

Citizenergy Platform

A greener Europe depends on us

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Today and tomorrow Ateknea Solutions is attending the conference on technology challenges and regional approaches for integrating renewables and energy security. The #EUTechRES Conference has been organised by the EU’s Directorate-General for Energy in Brussels.

To accomplish its transition to a low-carbon society by 2050, the EU has adopted a set of intermediate climate and energy targets for the following decades. The energy sector and especially the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are now facing an ambitious transformation process. As contributors to this transition, RES are able to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), replace fossil fuels as the main energy source and lower other environmental pressures associated with conventional energy production.

As part of our commitment to a greener Europe, Ateknea Solutions has launched a new research project to create a new, smart, on-line platform for citizens’ investment in renewable energy: Citizenergy.

Since March 2014, our engineers and project managers have been working together with 13 other European bodies to develop this initiative that will let individuals support and invest in renewable energy projects and share in the benefits of producing clean energy. This project has received the support of Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE).

The beta version is already available and a lot of effort has been put in to promoting the projects potential, citizen engagement and new RES activities. For further information,

  • watch our latest video:

  • Visit the Citizenergy Platform beta version here.
  • Read the lastest RES report by the European Environment Agency, “Renewable energy in Europe – approximated recent growth and knock-on effects”, download it here.
Divineverse Ateknea Lisbon 2015

Ateknea in global genetics scheme for winegrowers

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Today, Ateknea Solutions is at the heart of cutting-edge genetics for food and agriculture. Our representative Dr. Encarnação is attending the first DI(VINE)VERSE International Meeting in Lisbon. This initiative –including a professional seminar with the vitiviniculture and biotechnology communities– has the support of a network of multidisciplinary EU and US organisations covering the entire value chain of wine production.

DI(VINE)VERSE has the ambitious objective of creating and organising a network of on-farm conservation vineyards for intravarietal populations of Vitis vinifera landraces, to be used and explored by breeders and farmers. This network will provide full access to this set of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), complying with international directives under the International Treaty on PGRFA and the Nagoya Protocol.

This week, Dr. Encarnação is kick-offing Ateknea’s activities with stakeholders at different sites throughout Portugal. Like Ateknea, each partner involved will start working under the common criteria based on the international skills of outstanding academia, technology transfer associations, breeders, nurseries, farmers’ associations, SMEs and large wine-producing enterprises.

Throughout the next couple of months, we will be contributing to the development of DNA-based diagnostic technologies applied for variety identification and to the definition of exploitation routes for the potential results.

Stay tuned for more information on DI(VINE)VERSE here at our News Channel!

New Innovation Union Scoreboard presented today

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Today the European Commission has launched the 2015 comparative assessment of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their R&D systems.

Despite the positive trends in 2014 that showed more doctorate graduates, more international scientific co-publications and more community designs, there were also negative issues on the list. The Scoreboard draws a negative trend in innovation in SMEs and European innovations up to the market.

With more jobs in fast-growing companies, such as start-ups, spin-offs and other SMEs competing in innovative sectors, Ateknea Solutions will continue aiming to guide those companies towards a fruitful innovation environment throughout continental Europe.

Sweden continues to be the most innovative Member State, coupled with Denmark, Germany and Finland. On the bottom list, there is Romania, Bulgaria and Latvia. However, both Bulgaria and Latvia are leaders in innovation performance growth. Coupled with the United Kingdom and Ireland, Poland and Malta are also two of our targeted markets which are growing fast and we have strong performance under our Krakow and Valletta Offices.

Globally the EU’s innovation position compared to US and Japan is improving. South Korean power remains as the worldwide leader while China continues to close the innovation gap with the EU. Brazil, Russia and India showed a stagnant position.

Official infographic on ‘Innovation Union Scoreboard’ 2015 here

Ateknea BTA 2015

Vinbot wows BTA visitors

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Ateknea Solutions recently took part in the 2015 Barcelona Food Technologies (BTA), now in its 15th edition. The Fair brought together more than 35,000 visitors at Fira Barcelona to discover the latest trends and developments in technology, machinery and ingredients for the food industry.

Throughout the 4-day event, our PhD engineers involved in Encork, Ovoshine, Phenolive and Vinbot attended our stand to present these ongoing projects and their future commercialisation to the general public, business and representatives from across the food sector.

Watch our video

Ateknea’s Dr. Montràs was on hand to inform BTA attendees about Encork – an innovative solution to detect potentially contaminated corks in bottling plants – and Phenolive – an innovative solution to extract the non-chemical polyphenolic compounds from leftover wet olive pomace in post olive oil production. Their respective prototypes, currently in production chains, were explained in detail to all interested companies.

Ateknea’s Dr. Yáñez presented Ovoshine – a low cost technology which, to date, is presented as the best non-invasive solution to sterilise eggs for human consumption. Yáñez and his team of engineers explained the technology’s developments and as well as the state-of-the-art electronic “noses” that aim to detect diseases such as salmonella without affecting the natural quality and freshness of eggs.

Finally, Dr. Verges-Llahí’s team including PhD student Jordi Bautista together with our Valencian partners Robotnik, showed the BTA crowds the prototype of an autonomous mobile robot capable of measuring the state of the vineyards, Vinbot.  Vinbot sends data to an intelligent central system that helps the winemaker to make decisions based on the land potential and quality for wine production. Indeed, the robot attracted a great deal of attention from curious passers-by to interested parties in in the commercialization of Vinbot for the wine industry following full validation testing.

Our finance experts were also present at BTA to advise visitors interested in European funding to help launch new products, processes or services. Visitors to our stand were treated to a complementary vermouth and olives courtesy of our European partners Encork, Phenolive and Vinbot.

See our photos