The Eramet Group just held the second edition of its Open Innovation challenge, jointly organized by Eramet Ideas, its research and innovation subsidiary, and EIT RawMaterials. Let’s have a look at the winning project.
For the second edition of its Open Innovation challenge, Eramet selected a new theme: real-time monitoring, applicable to any of the Group’s activities or areas. The motivation behind this initiative was the Group’s desire to grow its network of partners so as to discover and include more innovative start-ups and SMEs.
Sisprobe, this year’s winner, is an international seismology service company based in Grenoble, France. Their solution? A new way of monitoring the structure and stability of Eramet’s mine tailings, whether they are at SLN in New Caledonia or at Comilog in Gabon, using ambient seismic noise, i.e. earth vibrations.
“The Real-Time Monitoring Challenge is the fruit of a partnership with EIT-Raw Materials. It was a real success and highlighted several very good proposals. The Sisprobe project chosen by Eramet’s Innovation Community is in line with the current themes of responsible mining and addresses a major issue which is the stability of tailings. The implementation of such a challenge also shows us that innovation can be a major contributor to responsible mining,” says Marie-Axelle Gautier, Eramet Public Affairs Director and Member of the EIT-RawMaterials board.
The challenge was launched online in July 2020, and by September, 42 projects had been submitted. After a pre-selection, 20 projects were evaluated by a jury of Eramet and EIT RawMaterials experts. Three finalists were then selected and received tailor-made advice and coaching from an Eramet mentor team before the finale on January 21.
“Sisprobe is extremely pleased and honoured to be awarded the first prize in this challenge. We greatly appreciated the enthusiastic support that we received from our Eramet mentors and we look forward with great anticipation to being able to start the interesting and challenging projects that we discussed during the preparation for the challenge. Our company was created following our receipt of an EIT RawMaterials Booster Award in 2017, and we are eager to repeat this success during our partnership with Eramet,” concludes Nick Arndt, President of Sisprobe.
