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Green ideas 2024: micro-greens, portable stove and kombucha bio-leather
ARNO has announced the winners of the tenth edition of the “Green Ideas” Competition, which will continue to compete at the regional level in September in Sarajevo, B&H. The jury of the competition, in the category of green ideas, chose the ideas “Urban farm in a container for production of microgreens with an aeroponic cultivation system” by Snezhana Jacovska – Intelligent Indoor Farm DOOEL Skopje and “BIOHIDE – One SCOBY at a time” by Angelina Serafimovska from LeatherandHide, while Trajce Rushev’s idea “Mobi Stove, a mobile stove for cooking in nature” was chosen in the embryonic winning idea category. A focus on green initiatives and innovative approaches defines the winning ideas this year.
The jury that evaluated the received applications was made up of experts: Marija Gjosheva-Kovačević from the “Agricultural Institute – Skopje”, Besiana Mustafa from the Chamber of Commerce of North-West Macedonia, Robertina Brajanoska from the Macedonian Ecological Society (MED), Velimir Lav Ilic from FITR , Sanja Lazarevska from ASPIRE Accelerator and Bojana Kiselovski from “Macedonia 2025”. For the national winners, the partners again provided support: free registration on the Connect2MK platform and mentoring services from “Macedonia 2025”, free two-year membership in the Chamber of Commerce of North-West Macedonia. $5,000 worth of Amazon software credits over 2 years awarded by the Aspire Accelerator. This year, ARNO awarded the three national winners promotional packages of eco-friendly cards made by the Macedonian green business Wizart, a former winner of the competition.
“Due to increasing demand for food and decreasing production of food, producers have turned to indoor crop production. This decrease is mainly caused by a reduction of fertile land, unfavorable climatic conditions, and limitations on specific natural resources like water. Cultivation of microgreens and microherbs with an aeroponic system in a container is a new and innovative product on the Macedonian market,” – said Snezhana Jacovska from Intelligent Indoor Farm.
“Green Ideas” is an annual competition that supports the development of small, local and sustainable business ideas in our country and in Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece. Every year, three representatives from each of the countries compete at a regional competition. The four winning representatives from the regional competition receive 5,000 or 10,000 dollars each for the realization of their ideas in their countries.
The Organization for Social Innovation “ARNO”, for the 10th year in a row, administers the national competition “Green Ideas” and is proud that so far the country has regional winners and a total investment of 95,000 dollars for the development of green businesses in the country: The first cooperative of organic consumers “Our Good Country” (2015), the initiative to repair old furniture that grew into a small business led by architect Marta Moysova – “SPIN” (2016), the platform for selling last minute meals “Food for All” (2017 year), education through illusionistic eco-messages “Green Magic Production” (2017), “Bio Smart Rice” rice production in a sustainable way (2019), “Challenger” mobile application that rewards citizens for all green kilometers traveled by walking (2019), “Wise Additive” which produces a food additive by processing grape pomace(2020), “O-Krug” (2021) a circular startup that produces ecological essential oils and air fresheners from orange peels, “Insect Pilot Room” (2022) producing protein pet food from insects and Mirjana Josifoska producing designer hats from textile scraps (2023).
