A start-up project, developed at LMS, wins the Swiss-India AITcamp16!

The Academia Industry Training (AIT) program aims to support scientists in transforming their high-level applied research into market application and discovering their entrepreneurial potential. By connecting scientists from top institutions in Switzerland and India/Brazil, the program promotes an international network and enables access to one of the most promising markets and intellectual capitals in applied research. The AIT is mandated by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) to EPFL CODEV. It is co-organized with venturelab, swissnex India and swissnex Brazil.

“We cultivate cement” stands for MeduSoil’s short moto and condenses its unique ability to induce the growth of microbe cement in the subsurface. At the heart of MeduSoil lies a strategy to ultimately increase the rigidity and resistance of soils. Medusoil was “born and raised” in the laboratory for Soil Mechanics of EPFL, to provide solutions for the emerging challenges in the construction field related to weak soils, as well as for implementing foundation repair works. In many areas of the world, soil stabilization becomes necessary and goes hand-in-hand with the conception of foundation solutions, especially in earthquake regions. MeduSoil introduces a flexible and adaptable strategy to target and access specific areas in the subsurface in order to increase their resistance, in a fast and cost-effective way.

Dimitrios adds that during the AITcamp, he was surprised to receive the overwhelming feedback of architects, who loved the idea of being able to shape construction elements out of earth materials by “letting microbe cement grow”. MeduSoil is currently scaling-up to provide solutions in this direction too.

The AIT camp in Bangalore, India as well in Lausanne/Zurich gave our PhD student the opportunity to dive into the world of entrepreneurship and connect the dots between academia and the industry. We asked him to condense his experience in few words. Here’s what he shared:

“This has been an extremely insightful and transforming experience. I was given the chance to connect with and learn from inspiring experts and mentors. The AIT camp has been the perfect set-up for “crash-testing” our ideas and shape new ones by discovering, in the meantime, the challenging Indian market. Most importantly, I learnt a lot from the experiences and stories of 37 young entrepreneurs, the participants from India, Brazil and Switzerland, in a very inspiring, dynamic, multi-cultural environment, that pushed every one of us forward. The AIT is an amazing ecosystem that offered us, continuously, with so much knowledge and energy. This fueled us with more passion and led us adopt new visions of our work. I am grateful for the support of EPFL_CODEV and the warm welcome of the swissnex India staff in Bangalore, as well as for the mentoring and coaching of VentureLab. Personally, I would like to thank my thesis advisor Prof. Lyesse Laloui for his guidance and endless support that pushed me towards exploring the potential that lies in my research, Prof. Rizlan Bernier-Latmani for helping a civil engineer (myself) dive into the fascinating world of geo-microbiology, as well as the Lombardi Foundation for supporting part of my research with an innovation grant.”