Genoa, October 31st, 2015 – UNIDO ITPO Italy organized an event in the framework of the Festival della Scienza held in Genoa last week with the aim to present some of the winning projects of the UNIDO International Award, carry out within EXPO Milano 2015. At the conference “Progetti d’eccellenza rilanciano l’Agribusiness”, which took place in the charming setting of Palazzo della Borsa in Genoa, participated more than 50 interested attendees invited by UNIDO.

During the event, UNIDO gave the opportunity to present their projects to Camilla Pandolfi, CEO of PNAT, an academic spin-off of the University of Florence that developed the project 'Jellyfish Barge', and Rosa Palmeri – University of Catania that presented her idea concerning the valorization of the prickly pear fruits. The first project idea aimed to maximize the potential application of the prickly pear cactus through an innovative method to offer a final product that can retain all of the nutritious properties offered by the highly perishable fresh fruit. This process permit to extend the product shelf life of approximately 12 months without any need of refrigeration. Jellyfish Barge, instead, is an already developed modular floating greenhouse able to produce food without soil consumption, freshwater irrigation, and chemical energy. Inside the floating greenhouse is installed a hydroponic cultivation system that, due to its water recycling mechanism, guarantees a saving of 70% of water compared to traditional crops. Moreover, thanks to solar energy, the greenhouse is also able to produce clean water (up to 150 liters per day) from salt, brackish, or polluted water, very useful in several developing countries.

In this occasion, UNIDO had the opportunity once again to thank all the candidates that allowed to the first edition of the International Award of achieving an outstanding success, collecting 150 high quality project proposals from 30 different countries worldwide and arising an international resonance in terms of media coverage.