Eureka Nova clinches three awards at the HKB Technology Excellence Awards 2021

Their innovative technologies have made them stand out amongst their industry peers. 

Open innovation platform Eureka Nova has bagged multiple awards during the recently held Hong Kong Business Technology Excellence Awards 2021 with several of their unique, innovative technologies setting industry standards.

Powered by New World Group, Eureka Nova empowers technology startups to co-create and create shared value within their ecosystem of culture, creativity, and innovation. Their Impact Kommons program partners with UN Sustainable Development Goal focused startups to scale out their solutions with New World Group’s business units for a better tomorrow.

The platform won the Emerging Technology - Commercial Building Construction category with its pilot of a new biochar-based material to reduce carbon emissions in Hong Kong’s construction industry.

Eureka Nova partnered with CLS Environmental Technologies, whose aim is to establish a circular economy model in Hong Kong’s construction industry. CLS collects waste wood and upcycles it into biochar-based, high-performance materials which can later be used in green building projects. 

Through the process, the carbon is effectively trapped in the transformed biochar through this upcycling process, thereby omitting the greenhouse gas emissions that would have resulted from the waste wood decomposition process. The platform provided field test opportunities and assistance to help CLS further develop their product.

CLS’s first biochar-based product is a bio-converted plaster additive. Aside from its low carbon footprint, the material can improve indoor air quality by absorbing smells and toxins. This fits with New World’s culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in helping reduce adverse impacts and build long-term sustainable communities. 

Eureka Nova also clinched the Property Technology - Real Estate category by saving energy in New World Development properties through En-trak’s Tenant Experience Platform (TEP).

As part of its New World Sustainability Vision 2030, the platform partnered with Hong Kong-based prop-tech solution En-trak. En-trak’s solutions cover Tenant Comfort, Energy Management & Smart Lighting. 

TEP allows users in an office to adjust the temperature and lights when they are in the office, and the system also optimises energy usage and learns usage patterns to increase energy savings. The solution’s Building Management System is able to track energy usage throughout a building. 

En-trak also installed their TEP in the Eureka Nova office. With the automation and ability to adjust based on the Eureka Nova team comfort level, there were energy savings of 13% in air conditioning and 39% in lighting.

Meanwhile, the platform also bagged the Robotics - Real Estate category with the deployment of Rice Robotics disinfection robots to disinfect K11 MUSEA.

Eureka Nova partnered with Rice Robotics, a Hong Kong-based startup focused on automating the service industry and building the infrastructure for next-generation corporations to deploy fleets of robots. The company's robots are autonomous and can operate elevators and turnstiles, charge, and navigate in crowded areas without any human assistance.

For the collaboration, Rice Robotics deployed two different types of service robots, providing disinfection and delivery services to its customers, from a single testing robot for deliveries at the concept stage to multi-robot deployment for K11 MUSEA disinfection. The solutions helped reduce human touch and improve customer confidence in the new normal, ultimately keeping them safe.