Dr. Pavlina Nanou has been chosen by the professional jury as the winner of the Prince Friso Engineering Prize 2024. She can call herself Engineer of the Year for a year. The Audience Award went to Prof. Kim Ragaert. The KIVI Engineering Student Team Award 2024 has been won by team Solid from Eindhoven University of Technology.
The Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) announced the winners on Wednesday, March 13, at a festive meeting at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Princess Mabel, in the presence of Princess Beatrix, presented the tenth Prince Friso Engineering Prize together with KIVI President Jacolien Eijer-De Jong.
The jury praises the Twente chemical technologist Pavlina Nanou for her “out of the box” approach. Spending months stirring cow manure in search of biogas gave her inspiration to look beyond fossil fuels. From a pilot at TNO, she became co-founder and COO at TORWASH, a startup focused on making various difficult waste flows circular, as a contribution to a better world. Here, Pavlina is mainly concerned with technology to convert sludge from sewage treatment into biofuel, biogas and fertilizer.
Pavlina does not limit her work to developing and implementing innovative technologies. It also invests heavily in its relationships and collaboration with stakeholders to make good use of these technologies and thus take significant steps towards a sustainable future. Because she lacked role models in her career, Pavlina would like to be visible as an engineer to inspire other women for technology. She does this by being active through the expertise agency women and technology VHTO and giving guest lectures at primary and secondary schools. The jury sees Pavlina as a great ambassador for technology.
