Sustainability has become a critical issue globally during the last decade, with entrepreneurs and innovators playing a significant role in driving sustainability initiatives forward. The Recursive’s new vote and award for April recognizes and celebrates the innovative and inspiring climate tech entrepreneurs in the Central and Eastern European region, leading the way in sustainable business practices.
These entrepreneurs understand that sustainability is not only the right thing to do but also makes good business sense. By promoting sustainable practices, they are reducing their environmental footprint, improving efficiency, and increasing profitability.
Moreover, they are creating a better future for us all by improving the well-being of communities, reducing poverty, and preserving resources for future generations.
Join The Recursive in acknowledging these climate tech entrepreneurs for their commitment to building a brighter and more sustainable future for our planet and its inhabitants!
Dimitar Enchev
Dimitar Enchev is a Bulgarian entrepreneur and investor with years long experience in the energy transition space. Enchev is a managing partner at PostScriptum Ventures, a private equity fund focused on sustainability and energy transition investments and he’s also co-founder of CWP Global, a company that developed and realized a number of large-scale renewable energy projects, including the biggest wind farm in Europe.
Jakub Lubonski
Jakub Lubonski is a CEO and a co-founder of Bin-e, a Poland-based smart waste management system that uses AI to recognise a type of waste and sorts it to the proper fraction automatically. Lubonski’s experience is in marketing and software services, and is passionate about eco-friendly driven solutions.
Sebastian Gorecki
Gorecki is a founder of Intelligent Hives, a management solution that can automatically detect dangerous situations, anomalies, and the change of environmental factors in bee hives. Gorecki has a PhD in computer science and is a former member of the Lodz Solar Team, the team which developed the first Polish solar-powered vehicles, as well as the “Gateway The Things Network” project.
Vladimir Vukicevic
Vukicevic is a Serbian entrepreneur and co-founder of wellness innovation company Better & Better, a company produces natural and vegan toothpaste with organic ingredients and sustainable packaging, as well as a plethora of other vitamin-infused and sustainable oral health care products, such as plastic-free natural floss and bamboo toothbrushes. Vukicevic is also the founder of startups Meural and Rockethub, companies that have been successfully acquired.
Gregoire Vigroux
Vigroux is a serial entrepreneur that has co-founded and invested in more than 25 businesses across Eastern Europe. His latest sustainability related projects include Fenix, an online store for refurbished smartphones, and bonapp.eco, a mobile app combating food waste allowing users to buy food close to its expiration date from nearby grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, cafés, or hotels.
Matija Zulj
Matija Zulj is an impact entrepreneur and founder and CEO of AGRIVI, a Croatian startup with a vision to change the way food is produced and positively impact over a billion lives. AGRIVI helps numerous companies across the globe to produce nutritious, healthy, and sustainably grown food by digitizing their crop production and agriculture supply chains.
Olga Rajcic
Olga Rajcic is North Macedonia-based entrepreneur and a cofounder of Challenger, a mobile app that motivates its users to walk, run or bike more, and get rewarded for it by getting discount codes for products and services in local businesses. With extensive experience in business development and community management, Rajcic entered the entrepreneurial world in 2018, when she became the CEO of Challenger and a relentless advocate for sustainability in North Macedonia.
Lefteris Arapakis
Arapakis is a co-founder of Enaleia, a social startup with a vision for a more sustainable marine ecosystem. Enaleia has created the first school for professional fishing in Greece and it also initiated a wide-scale plastic clean up, the Mediterranean CleanUp, through working with fishermen. Arapakis is a graduate of the Athens University of Economics and Business, a TEDx speaker and an Ashoka Changemaker.
Dimitri (Jim) Evangelopoulos
Evangelopoulos is the founder of Augmenta, a deep-tech company serving farmers and agricultural service providers with both intuitive and actionable solutions. The Greek entrepreneur describes himself as a computer engineer, farmer and technical diver, and is an expert in circuit design, programming and big data analytics.
Artur Racicki
Artur Racicki is a serial entrepreneur with experience in cleantech businesses. So far he has co-founded four startups: SEEDiA, Fair Water, FCAPP and Social Kiwi, and has two exits with Sport24.pl and Social WiFi. The startup that he founded in 2016, SEEDiA is building a smart system of energy independent solar-powered products, including smart benches, solar bins, solar displays, and solar bus stops.
Orlin Radev
Orlin Radev is a Bulgarian entrepreneur with experience in e-mobility and the IT industry. He has founded ten companies over the last 15 years and has also been active as a mentor and angel investor. Radev is a leading expert on the topics of e-mobility and EV charging worldwide, and is also a speaker and consultant in the topics of e-mobility, EV charging and business development in the EV charging sector.
Aga Maciejowska
Aga Maciejowska is the CEO and co-founder of Plan Be Eco, a startup with a solution that calculates scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions across the whole supply chain and creates automatic carbon footprint reports following GHG Protocol and compliant with industry standards.
Mihai Toader-Pasti
Toader-Pasti is a Romanian entrepreneur that has worked on numerous projects related to green homes, solar energy and sustainable cities. In 2012 he co-founded EFdeN, a student-driven NGO aiming to make Romania more sustainable through better houses, products and education. Under his leadership, more than 250 companies supported the project with an accumulated budget of more than three million euros. He is also the co-founder and leader of energiaTa, which changed the law to make household renewable energy production a reality in the country.
Roman Laus
Roman Laus has built or co-founded several companies, such as Home Institute, Global E-learning, and Global DTP. He has been a founding member as well as a Program Director at Future Port Prague, the largest international futuristic event in Central Europe. Thanks to his network and knowledge gained through the Future Port journey, he decided to not only organize events about future technologies but to take action. Thus, in 2020, Roman founded Mewery, the first European cell-based food-tech startup developing cultivated pork on a microalgae base with the potential to change the entire cultivated meat industry.
Simona Stiliyanova
Stiliyanova is a Bulgarian entrepreneur and an European Climate Pact ambassador. She is a co-founder and managing director of Osnova, a Sofia-based startup that is an advisor for sustainable business. The startups help their clients measure their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, set relevant science-based goals, and achieve sustainable changes.
Menno Holterman
Holterman is the CEO of Nijhuis Saur Industries providing solid and adaptive solutions for sustainable and resilient water use, energy, and resource recovery for Light and Heavy Industries, Utilities, and Commercial Buildings. NSI today is delivering innovative technologies, engineering and consulting services, in-house manufacturing and R&D and turnkey project execution (including DBFOM), O&M site servies and mobile water solutions.
Vote for the The Most Impactful Sustainability Entrepreneur in the CEE here