DANISH MINISTER OF CLIMATE AND ENERGY ENCOURAGES FURTHER ACADEMIC/INDUSTRY CLEANTECH COLLABORATION AT COPENMIND CLOSING SESSION COPENMIND
Event Sees Matchmaking, Mindflow and Major Announcements
September 3, 2008 – Copenhagen, Denmark – COPENMIND, the global cleantech event, closed today after three days of exhibition, conference sessions and matchmaking among 125 universities and more than 1,500 industry executives. The closing session commenced with a keynote speech by Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister of Climate and Energy.
Connie Hedegaard stressed the global need for future energy solutions. She emphasised that universities and research institutions have the knowledge to develop technologies necessary to face these challenges, while industry has the responsibility to make a sustainable future possible through investment.
“The Minister’s speech successfully summarised our efforts over the past three days here at COPENMIND,” said Steffen Moldow, Founder of COPENMIND. “COPENMIND creates a platform upon which research and industry from across the world can meet in one place and develop partnerships and solutions, and there is still a need to continue this collaboration – we hope we can further this important work during COPENMIND 2009: Energy.”
Several major announcements were made during the event by pre-eminent international organisations such as Danfoss, Siemens, WWF as well as the European Environment Agency’s Royal Awards for Sustainability.
On day 1, Danfoss PolyPower A/S unveiled a groundbreaking unique material that mimics human muscle offering great potential to the development of actuators, sensors and energy harvesting equipment. The technology is called Danfoss PolyPower DEAP (Di-Electric Electro Active Polymer). A few examples of how the technology may be used include for industrial robots, noise cancellation and vibration reduction, and wave buoys to generate electricity.
On day 2, after a comprehensive mindflow session led by WWF, globalization experts and city planners presented a new global standard for low-carbon cities. This announcement marked the first steps towards developing a global index for sustainable cities called “Low-Carbon City Index.” The Index will incorporate cities own emissions as well as assessing its impact on other cities through import, export and knowledge development.
Finally, the 2008 Royal Award for Sustainable Technology Transfer, protected by HRH Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, was presented to Colorado State University at COPENMIND for their clean tech innovations in three different areas; the international clean cook stove project, two-stroke engine conversion kit and the next generation of biofuels production from algae.
ABOUT COPENMIND COPENMIND – a groundbreaking exhibition and conference dedicated to research, technology and innovation through university-industry partnerships – will create a global and dedicated forum enabling commercial matchmaking between university exhibitors and industry executives on a scale that has never been seen before. The theme for 2008 is cleantech, specifically the role of technology in solving global environment and climate challenges. For more information, please visit http://www.copenmind.com.
For more information on the research projects from Colorado State University, please visit http://www.energy.colostate.edu/
CONTACT: Rikke Sandbye, tel +45 70206277, rsa@copenmind.com
Created at: September 15, 2008 16:06