TBS Talents inspire the 2020 Global Student Challenge

Two students from TBS Bachelor program have been awarded first prize in the «Global Student Challenge» by Babson

Rodolphe Mondin (TBS 2020) and Julien Houssiaux (TBS 2020) are both 3rd year students in the TBS Bachelor program Innovation Management course. The have just won the Babson Collaborative 2020 Global Student Challenge which distinguishes student entrepreneurial projects aiming at sustainable development with the United Nations. 

This year, their project which is called «Mondin», caught the particular attention of the jury who awarded them first prize in front of 16 other international candidates. The pair of young entrepreneurs have developed an alternative material to animal leather, created using grape pomace and biopolymers.

Less polluting than traditional leather and simili leather, this matierial is made from bio-sourced components. 

Their project is part of a comprehensive plan to recycle and recover waste and for short circuit production. In fact, the French wine sector produces a great deal of grape pomace all over the country. The technique is in the research and development phase and the two award winners have joined TBSeeds, the School's incubator. They are working to finalize the formula of the ecological vegetable material intended for the luxury goods industry. 

The Mondin leather is at a turning point. 

Over and above recyling waste produced by vineyards and recycling the bi-products into carbon fibre, this French manufacturing technique does not increase the number of animals sent to slaughter, which counts for more than a billion every year. Furthermore, unlike animal hides that are tanned with Chromium, no harmful substances are used. There are many reasons to promote this new generation leather which conveys the hopes of a new, more responsible consumer behaviour without betraying the codes of luxury goods. 

The Mondin start-up is at the point of disrupting animal hide marketing by releasing to the market an alternative product made of vegetable fibre and recycled carbon fibre. Congratulations Rodolphe Mondin and Julien Housiaux !!