The team from the University of Crete won the first prize in the
Innovation Marathon “Artemis Saitakis”, within “InnoDays 2022 – The Crete of
Knowledge and Production”, organized by the Region of Crete, from Friday 25 to
Sunday 27 November 2022 at the International Exhibition Centre of Crete.

Based on the contest challenge, “Innovative
ideas for the development of sustainable practices in the production and
promotion of olive oil and carob of Crete”, the team from the University of
Crete proposed a marketable innovative idea with great business potential.
Specifically, the team proposed a platform where certified sustainable olive
oil producers can sell their product worldwide while at the same time, offer
experience tourism services to those interested to participate at any phase of
the sustainable olive oil production. In addition, the platform allows sellers
to provide transportation means in accordance with each buyer’s preferences
over CO2 emissions.  That means the
product will have different prices according to the CO2 emissions omitted by
the transportation means used to be delivered.

According to the team members, the practical
implementation of the idea can promote and enhance sustainable rural tourism in
Greece. In addition, they stressed that this platform can be “applied”
to other products as well.

We would like to express our
warm congratulations to the team members, Athina Tsironi (Department of
Political Science), Nikos Kakavas (Department of Chemistry), Stelios
Stavgianoudakis (Department of Chemistry) and Chrysostomos Ploumakis
(Department of Computer Science).