Rubber Conversion makes the top three of the most successful Italian startups and is the winner of the prestigious Keynes Sraffa Award.
Rubber Conversion Picks Up Award
Exemplary businesses and the most innovative entrepreneurs working on environmental sustainability and representing an excellent example of Green Business were presented at the Keynes Sraffa Awards, promoted by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in the UK, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Centre. The celebration of Italian entrepreneurial talent took place at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster, London, on the 28th of November 2019.
Head of promotion and development of innovation at Intesa Sanpaolo, Mr. Vicenzo Antonetti, opened the gala night with a presentation on the importance of the Circular Economy.
Rubber Conversion’s business developer and creating shared values brand manager Cveta Majtanovic, won the most prestigious Keynes Sraffa Award on behalf of this Italian startup. The company has patented rubber devulcanisation technology that provides high-quality raw materials from post-consumption and post-production rubber waste. Awarded by Leonardo Simonelli Santi, the President Emeritus of the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK, this startup’s technology was promoted as the most promising method to reuse ELT-derived rubber materials through devulcanisation.
During the award ceremony, Ms. Majtanovic underlined the importance of the raw materials to Europe’s economy. She highlighted the usefulness and the values of natural rubber preservation: “The cruciality of raw materials to Europe’s economy presented in European Commission’s Critical Raw Materials List (CRM 2017) speaks quite explicitly about the risk associated with raw materials supply”, Majtanovic concluded.
Rubber Conversion is a spin-off from Innovando Srl, an Italian waste management operation handling over 60,000 tons of waste annually from some 3,000 collection points.
Cveta Majtanovic is a double-degree PhD candidate in Computer Science, exploring Artificial Intelligence at the University of Trento.
Additionally, she is one of the Lecturers at the institution’s School of Innovation, the first of this kind in Italy.