The BioFactory | Energy Catalyst Mission to Kenya

SETsquared Bath member and Graduate Innovation Award winner, Eoin Sharkey, founder of The BioFactory, recently shared some very exciting news with us. He was invited by Innovate UK and DFID to represent British start-ups and joined them on the Energy Catalyst Mission in Kenya!

To give you a first-hand account of Eoin’s trip we have shared an excerpt from his guest blog post (you can follow his Innovation Award blog here) below for you to read.

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The BioFactory guest blog #7 - August 2019

Innovate UK and DFID invited me to join them on the Energy Catalyst Mission to Kenya. That’s right, I was on a UK Trade Mission!

It was a great five days in the country where we met a number of large players in the energy sector to learn about the needs on the continent, including the national grid suppliers, the governments ministry of energy, the UN, and many other private and public sector companies making waves in the region.

This was a huge opportunity to network and learn about the energy market needs, and how our solutions fit into this landscape. Through these meetings I have seen that there is a real need for sustainable and alternative cooking fuel sources. One thing I found extremely useful, and commonly under-rated, was the conversations I had with the rest of the cohort of companies.

I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to tech, always pushing to learn everything I can, and a week of delving into cutting edge technology was a real fix! I’m not going to lie, I get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that Innovate UK believe I’m onto something with The BioFactory.

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Congratulations Eoin! It looks like were part of a very important and valuable trip in Kenya. Thank you for sharing your news with our members and visitors and we can’t wait to hear what’s in store for The BioFactory next.

If you’d like to learn more about The BioFactory and Eoin’s entrepreneurial journey then have a look at his regular guest blog on our site here.