Innovation news

An image of 3 people at a Canopy event smiling and socialising with a crowd of people behind them. Taken from within the Entopia building at CISL.

CISL’s innovation ecosystem accelerates sustainable solutions to global challenges, connecting founders, startups, corporates, and investors to scale impactful change. Through initiatives like our Cambridge innovation hub, CANOPY, and programs in startup acceleration and collaborative innovation, we empower purpose-led entrepreneurs and guide major organizations in embedding sustainability-driven strategies. Explore our latest stories and insights below to see how our community is driving transformative impact worldwide.

Meet our community: Farad.ai

19 May 2021 – Farad.ai's vision is to enable the current electrical infrastructure to run on 100% low carbon energy. To achieve this, they are developing an AI-powered digital twin of the power system (Farad.ai Sabre) and related site selection products (Farad.ai Compass) that will support energy stakeholders in their move towards a zero-carbon future. We caught up with their founder and CEO, Ali Safari, to find out more…

Meet our innovators: Hide Biotech

5 May 2021 – Hide Biotech develops sustainable and high-quality biomaterials for the fashion industry and provides a technology platform for creating highly customisable materials for other sectors. Last year, their co-founder and CEO, Yudi Ding, joined our Innovators for sustainable fashion Accelerator. In this interview, Yudi tells us more about Hide’s collagen-based leather alternative and shares his best advice for aspiring sustainability start-ups.

Meet our innovators: Ideabatic

15 April 2021 – Award-winning social enterprise Ideabatic develops innovations that help to improve people's lives in underserved communities. Their Founder and CEO Kitty Liao joined our Innovators for change Accelerator last year. In this interview, she shares her journey building an impact-driven start-up and what is to come for Ideabatic in 2021.

The CISL Accelerator experience: Innovators for sustainable fashion

29 March 2021 – CISL’s Accelerator is designed to accelerate the world’s leading sustainability innovators, with new organisations and transformative business models that will decarbonise our economy, restore nature and create inclusive societies. But what is the experience like? In this blog, participants from our Innovators for sustainability fashion programme reflect on their time with us and all they learned.

Seven steps to help SMEs strengthen their sustainability efforts

12 February 2021 - CISL’s Accelerator Programme Director, Eithne George recently lent her expertise to Lloyds Banking Group and wrote a chapter for their new book: Yes Business Can, which aims to help small British businesses maximise their potential. Here are the key recommendations for SMEs looking to take action on sustainability.

Meet our community: Farad.ai

Meet our innovators: Hide Biotech

Meet our innovators: Ideabatic

The CISL Accelerator experience: Innovators for sustainable fashion

Seven steps to help SMEs strengthen their sustainability efforts

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