Written by: Ban Siang (AY 21/22 Sem 2 Resident and Marcomms Writer)
Reviewed by: Michelle (AY 21/22 Sem 2 Resident Assistant)

One month after the commencement of N-House’s inaugural Circular Economy N-novate Challenge, the programme rose to a crescendo in our finale on 16th March 2022 during the challenge’s Demo Day. After 4 weeks of intense brainstorming and a series of workshops, mentorship sessions and networking, the final teams of the N-novate Challenge were ready to pitch!

Publicity Poster for the Circular Economy N-Novate Challenge

The participating teams were issued with the following problem statement: To promote a circular economy, how might we innovate to minimise waste and resource extraction? Their proposals were judged based on four key criteria — innovation, impact, feasibility and investability.

The event was graced by Brian Koh, Director of NUS Enterprise. He was joined by our three distinguished judges: Christina Lee, founder and CEO of Global Green Connect; Sai Surya, founder and CEO of Young Sustainable Impact SEA; and Ho Yuen Ping, associate director of NUS Enterprise and faculty advisor to NUS Social Impact Catalyst.

Our Guest-of-Honour and three judges for N-House Circular Economy N-Novate Challenge Demo Day 2022

Congratulations to the winners!

In a highly competitive demo day featuring 8 promising business teams, the following three teams emerged as the overall winners.

• Champion: Mechie D’s
• 1st Runner-up: the moonbeam co.
• 2nd Runner-up: Ups Cycling

Champion: Mechie D’s. The team is working on their idea to design modular household appliances with inter-changeable parts to increase repairability and reduce waste when parts malfunction.

1st Runner-up: Ups Cycling. The team repurposes Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chips in TraceTogether tokens to build a queuing system based on mesh networking technology.

2nd Runner-up: The Moonbeam Co. The team aspires to be the next big CPG brand like Unilever but via sustainable and mindful means. They are now collecting unserved cooked rice and brewers’ spent grains to make products that consumers desire, making sustainable lifestyles easier and accessible.

Winning teams were awarded a green lane to pitch for the NUS Venture Initiation Programme (VIP) Impact Grant with a seed-funding opportunity of up to SG$10,000, a 3-month incubation space at the Hangar with a further 3 months subject to additional review, as well as comprehensive mentorship support from SDG Openhack.

At the same time, we would also like to thank all of the six remaining teams that participated in the N-House Circular Economy N-novate Challenge — Gogreen, Liquidlist, Kaya Brod, Team Preloved and Ecolo.

Lastly, the organising team has been working tirelessly over the past months and we take this chance to thank them for the successful completion of the challenge. You can also re-watch the event on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NHouse.sg/videos/989644965269535

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