“Spacemanic is thrilled about this opportunity from ESA and immensely grateful to Pierre Cardin for their active participation in furthering of scientific research. This award will enable us to further develop our WaterCube concept, which we believe has great potential and could one day assist with keeping our oceans, lakes and other bodies of water clean, safe and teeming with diverse life,” said Daniela Jovic, CCO at Spacemanic.

For the second time, fashion house Pierre Cardin collaborated with ESA on its Prix Bulles, an esteemed award which has been presented to a startup whose project and initiatives promote and advance the emergence of an ecological space economy in service to Earth. This year, the focus was on the ‘Space for Oceans and Oceans for Space’ and what one can do for the other.

In the ‘space’ category, ESA’s Commercialisation services department helped Pierre Cardin by publishing an open call for entries mainly among its network of Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) around Europe, which received 27 applications from startup companies across 12 ESA Member States.

Applicants described how their space-based system, service, or technology contributed to the sustainable development of an ‘ecological economy of the oceans’ and how they would use the prize money. ESA experts and Pierre Cardin Group shortlisted four proposals.