The Limassol Municipality Blue Innovation Centre holds a Stakeholder Engagement Event Titled "Connecting Innovative Products to the Market"

The Limassol Municipality Blue Innovation Centre - Royal Caribbean International was  co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union, under the Operational Programme "Competitiveness and Sustainable Development" 2014-2020, the Republic of Cyprus, Limassol Municipality Fund and the kind sponsorship of 150,000 euros by Royal Caribbean International. 

The Center seeks to contribute decisively to the creation of a blue economy innovation ecosystem in the city where, through strategic partnerships with private and public bodies, universities and investors, it will help convert innovative ideas to products and services.  Noting that Limassol is one of the EU’s Net Zero Cities aimed to be climate-neutral by 2030, the Centre is endeavouring to aid in the enabling and development of solutions to real life blue economy NetZero City challenges in achieving climate neutral status.

To that effect the Center held an event on February 8, 2024, where four innovative products, aimed at addressing issues facing the blue economy, presented to regulatory authorities, potential investors, potential customers and academia.   All products were at a pre commercialization stage of development and have gone through either an accelerator program and/or have received financing.

Relevant stakeholders, investors, potential customers in the maritime industry, regulators, the port authority  and academia as well as shipping companies attended the event. 

The Mayor of Limassol Mr. Nicolaides opened the proceedings with a warm welcome to the attendees and an account of the city’s highly ambitious Mission Cities project which envisages Limassol becoming green-house gas emissions neutral by 2030.

Dr. Alexandros Charalambides, the Scientific Advisor to the Centre, outlined the development stages needed to progress an idea to become a product and finally reached market penetration.

Two companies from Cyprus, one from Bulgaria and one from Malta presented their products.   The Nicosia based EMBIO Diagnostics (https://embiodiagnostics.eu/) presented two pioneering products AIRBELD (https://embiodiagnostics.eu/products/airbeld/) and B.EL.D. (https://embiodiagnostics.eu/products/belddevice/)  designed to monitor water and air quality.  Solumar,(https://www.solumar.org/) a company with offices in Bulgaria, UAE and Saudi Arabia presented groundbreaking air and gas filtering technology based on the aeronautics industry.  Cyprus based InoMob (https://www.inomob.eu/) a company passionate in turning waste streams to renewable fuels presented cutting edge technology that upgrades biogas into bio-methane as well as the first Cyprus production of net zero emissions of renewable natural gas within the Cyprus borders.  Finally Malta based Marinehound (https://marinehound.com) presented a Continuous Emission Monitoring System of marine fuel pollutants for reporting to the authorities.

Mr. Demetris Skourides the Chief Scientist for Research, Innovation and Technology of the Republic of Cyprus offered the event’s concluding remarks where the emphasized the importance of innovation in the market. 

The Centre would like to thank all participants for their contributions, time and effort in making this event useful for all involved.