24 hours to innovate for the benefit of the living world

Supported by the Erasmus+ program, the Hackathon Youth for Bioeconomy was held simultaneously in Paris, Barcelona, and Athens, embodying a spirit of European academic cooperation around bioeconomy challenges. At AgroParisTech, 29 students from leading universities and schools worked for 24 hours in multidisciplinary teams on concrete challenges proposed by industrial and institutional partners. They devised innovative solutions centered on three key themes: agriculture and agri-food, water, and forests and biodiversity.

Four teams were awarded prizes, each receiving 1,000 euros.

• Agriculture and agri-food: TerraLoop has developed a logistics model for circular bio-conversion of agricultural byproducts. Agricultural waste (straw, wheat bran) is used to raise black soldier fly larvae, which are then used as feed for poultry. The manure produced is turned into organic fertilizer and returned to the fields, thus closing the loop. The project targets the Grand Est, Île-de-France, and Brittany regions.
• Water: LactoLoop proposed a solution for valuing whey from dairy farms, a byproduct that is currently costly to process. Through a network of farms equipped and connected to a central processing unit, whey is collected, processed, and value-added, thereby turning a cost into an economic opportunity, while reusing treated water in the production chain.
• Forests and biodiversity: LocaLignin has focused on the production of high-quality lignin from forest byproducts. By extracting and valorizing this bio-based molecule with high industrial potential, the project offers a sustainable alternative to certain problematic chemical compounds such as parabens or oxybenzone, used notably in cosmetics.
• Jury’s Favorite: BioKube has worked on an autonomous and economical water purification solution in Europe, based on biochar derived from biomass pyrolysis. Biochar acts as both a filtering material and a carbon sink. The project is based on a four-phase roadmap, ranging from a local demonstrator to a replicable regional platform.

Four projects that, each on their own scale, concretely illustrate what the bioeconomy can contribute to today’s environmental challenges.

For AgroParisTech, hosting this event addresses three priorities:

• Supporting student initiatives, as the event was initiated by Lucie de Seguins-Pazzis, a master’s student and European ambassador for the bioeconomy
• Highlighting its innovation support initiatives, namely the InnLabs (Food’InnLab, Farm’InnLab, Biotech’InnLab, Cosmet’InnLab, Forest’InnLab)
• Reaffirming its role in the development of the bioeconomy at the European level.

A role that will take on a new dimension in late 2026, when the institution assumes the presidency of the European Bioeconomy University alliance.