Danny Lucas joins AkzoNobel judging panel for Paint the Future start up challenge 2019

Danny Lucas joined a nine-strong panel of expert judges for this year’s AkzoNobel challenge for new start-ups as part of the company’s Paint the Future programme.

The international paint giant, whose brands include Dulux, holds a challenge for new companies wanting to collaborate in paints and coatings technologies to harness new ideas and help develop them into commercial realities.

Over 160 new companies from around the world submitted ideas and concepts, and were whittled down to a shortlist of 21 companies. Danny and fellow judges from AkzoNobel, industry research and financial specialists met in Amsterdam to assess the shortlisted ideas and proposals.

After three days of collaborative talks with AkzoNobel and its partners and five hours of brainstorming and deliberation by Danny and the judging panel, five companies were awarded Paint the Future agreements for further business development. Two companies were from the United States, one from the UK, and two from the Netherlands. A sixth company won a collaborative agreement with KPMG, one of the partners in the challenge.

Danny Lucas said: “It was a real honour to be asked by AkzoNobel to join their judging panel. We saw some fantastic new ideas and the innovative use of new technologies with great potential.”

Klaas Kruithof, AkzoNobel’s Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Paint the Future jury, said: “We’re very excited to continue our collaborative journey with the recipients of the Paint the Future awards. Together with these start-ups, we’re going to drive innovation in paints and coatings beyond expectation, imagination and generations.”

The ideas and solutions that captured the jury’s imagination were smart coatings from SAS Nanotechnologies; an automated printing head for coating large surfaces from QLayers; di-block polymers that tune surface functionality from Interface Polymers; an autonomous drone from Apellix; Alucha Recycling Technologies’ solution for turning waste into bio-oils and minerals; and Octo’s digital solutions for inspections.