Polymeron wins $1m sustainability award in Riyadh

Martin Ibarra's startup Polymeron won the $1m sustainability award. The Omnipreneurship Sustainability Challenge for Inclusive Leadership was organized by the Tanmiah Food Co., with 93 proposals received from across the world and Polymeron was one of the five finalist.

Martin Ibarra's startup Polymeron won the $1m sustainability award. The Omnipreneurship Sustainability Challenge for Inclusive Leadership was organized by the Tanmiah Food Co., with 93 proposals received from across the world and Polymeron was one of the five finalist.

Tanmiah Food Company, together with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture and Al-Dabbagh Group, organized the event. The awards were launched to incentivize scientists and innovators to find ways to reduce carbon emission levels as a result of food production. The focus of the challenge is to find a solution that will process chicken farm waste in a cost-effective, commercially viable manner to create a positive impact on Tanmiah Food Company (TFC) as a corporate entity, on the environment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ultimately global ecosystem.

Martin Ibarra is a PhD student in Bioscience at the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC). Martin Ibarra along with co-founders Rodrigo Jimenez Sandoval and Noor Zaouri formed the startup Polymeron. His startup Polymeron develops and produces environmentally friendly polymeric materials by up-cycling the organic waste of the date industry. Their first proprietary plastic formulation is biodegradable and unlike oxo-plastics, it doesn’t generate micro plastics.

Polymeron's recognition was featured in an article in the Arab News.

Article picture source: Arab News