Ticino’s new Impact Club Incubator nominates 10 projects

Impact Club is a program of Impact Hub Ticino that aims to support the development of impactful entrepreneurial and social innovation projects (for-profit and non-profit) in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland by facilitating meetings with selected investors and philanthropists.

Each year, Impact Club offers early stage projects a 5-month incubation path to lead them to develop a sustainable business model that combines impact and adequate economic return, and makes them ready to receive the first funding. Through a collaborative, inclusive and iterative approach, Impact Club offers entrepreneurs, social innovators, investors and philanthropists the opportunity to work together in order to make a tangible impact.

Following the call for applications, the Impact Club committee received 64 projects from across the canton, of which 20 underwent an in-depth evaluation based on the criteria of the projects' impact, risk potential, investibility (philanthropic and impact) and the usefulness of the incubation path for the teams at this specific time. Ten made it into the program, which starts on 2 September through January 2023. The projects come from 9 municipalities, 5 have at least one woman on the founding team and 3 are non-profits.

The projects are:

Calanca Swiss Herbs – revitalizes Calanca's forestry harvesting activities while enhancing its cultural tradition and identity. The team has developed a portable extractor that transforms wood by-products, that would otherwise go to waste into high purity essential oils and products based on lost recipes. By adopting a circular economy approach and developing machinery that can be moved over difficult terrain, the project contributes to creating new jobs in a mountain area. The project is highly replicable in other mountain regions, in Switzerland and abroad.

Carbon Zero – aims to prototype, test and scale up a device designed to turn waste products (i.e. sawdust) into vegetable charcoal and wood distillate for regenerative agricultural use via biomass carbonization. Vegetable charcoal stores carbon in soils, reduces the amount of fertilizer required, and thus decreases groundwater pollution. The wood distillate can be used as a 100% biodegradable alternative to pesticides. In addition, the biomass carbonization method can be used in water reclamation projects, to remove phosphates and nitrates from the lake that prevent eutrophication, or in filtration systems to remove pharmaceutical residues from wastewater. The project is at an advanced R&D phase with already existing small-scale modules.

Clownterapia a domicilio – the Association “Ridere per Vivere” of trained Clown-Doctors aims to develop a new program that allows volunteers to visit long-term care patients in their own homes. Studies have shown that clown-therapy accelerates recovery from illness while supporting the patient’s family. Activating a 'Clown-Doctor at Home’ service requires committing two volunteers over a two month-period with bi-weekly visits, and thus activating trained new volunteers to develop the program (training lasts a year). Over the medium term, the association aims to have clown therapy recognised by health insurance companies and increase adoption by training social-health workers in Italian-speaking Switzerland.

EDU eScape Digitale – aims to create a unique learning experience for middle and high school students, allowing them to immerse themselves in a story and solve puzzles to reach the end. With the collaboration of USI and an Innosuisse Flagship Initiative, the team has already tested a math-based escape experience for students in middle school, with very positive feedback from teachers. The goal is to enrich the program with additional escape experiences by working closely with several local schools, raise awareness about digital safety in Ticino and the Italian part of Switzerland.

Green Waste Disposal – uses pyrolysis to process and dispose of municipal solid, non-recyclable and organic waste and forestry by-products such as woodust. The designed pyrolysis process does not emit CO2 greenhouse gasses, nitrogen dioxide, dioxins and particulate matter into the atmosphere, while the fertilizer produced promotes the growth of fast growing vegetation such as bamboo. Green Waste Disposal generates profit-making ecological resources such as ecological fertilizers that are obtained from the process of waste disposal itself. The project also aims to facilitate municipal solid waste disposal for households and commercial economies in more peripheral areas, far from collection points.

HeatNeutral – a low-cost, all-fuel burner system with high combustion efficiency and achieves close to 100% reduction in harmful emissions. The burner can run on all types of liquid biofuels and on conventional fossil heating oils. It can also be easily installed into already existing heating systems, allowing it to upgrade to a technology that can reduce fine particles (PM10) and carbon monoxide emissions. HeatNeutral’s technical innovation has a high barrier to entry, while answering to the needs of both the industrial and domestic heating sectors: private users can benefit from access to a large variety of fuels to generate heat - including the reuse of house oils - while companies can also reduce expenses, i.e., carbon taxes.

Humus – aims to develop a fully regenerative food value chain, including an organic farm, grocery shops/bistrots and a cutting-edge international research institute in Ticino. This pilot is the basis for carrying out research, implementing and disseminating an ecological, circular, and local model of agriculture that regenerates ecosystems while promoting social inclusion and food sovereignty.

Natural Networking – offers children the opportunity to spend time outdoors, in the forest in particular, and deepen their ecological and environmental knowledge, stimulating creativity, physical activity, social interactions, and relations with the place. ‘Natural networking' comes from an educational and awareness-raising pilot project that over the past few years has offered extracurricular experiences in nature for children in Capriasca. The goal now is to diversify the types of grants that are received to consolidate it financially by connecting to other similar experiences and finding ways to replicate it and scale it to other areas and regions.

Same Ocean – is an art project showcasing short films for primary school children, addressing overproduction, accumulation and waste of plastic in rivers and seas. The clownish character opens up the topic with sensitivity and humor in a playful way. By exhibiting the videos in school settings and in-class activities, conscious production and consumption become natural for the new generation. So far, three episodes have been created. By collaborating with a multidisciplinary team, the project aims to continue working on students’ awareness raising.

Testedirapa – regenerates sub-standard raw food otherwise wasted by processing and upcycling it into savory preserves. The raw materials used are often surplus produce excluded from trade because of their out-of-caliber shapes and sizes, or for being slightly damaged by climatic events. These organic products are yet perfect for processing and consumption, and provide a secondary revenue stream for producers and intermediaries. Testedirapa is a project by A Fior di Gusto bistrot, and thanks to innovative culinary processing techniques, the team reintroduces such ingredients into the market. Processed waste goes into composting in the garden, thus generating a virtuous circular and regenerative process.

Further training
For the excluded projects and in recognition of their value, Impact Hub Ticino will launch a series of training and exchange moments in the fall aimed at female entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and social innovators in the area: an opportunity to mature ideas and learn new methodologies, practices and tools.

Impact Club is a program initiated by Impact Hub Ticino, implemented thanks to the Migros Pioneer Fund in collaboration with Mercator Foundation Switzerland and a group of local investors, investors and philanthropists.

(Press release/RAN)