On a recent trip to India, Skolkovo Foundation president Victor Vekselberg named BioMicroGel as one of the innovation center’s two dozen residents that could help with cleaning up the Ganges river.
Pollution of the Ganges is said to cost India a significant proportion of its GDP. Photo: Flickr
Contacted this week by sk.ru, the startup said it was all too willing to pitch in.
“Obviously, we consider India an important potential market,” BioMicroGel general director Vadim Turygin said. “That’s why we’re filing for patents in India too.”
Among the company’s products is a microgel used to purify water as well as a complex solution for water treatment.
It currently lacks experience on big projects such as the Ganges, “but we are always ready to offer our methods and products, or to tailor our technology to a particular task,” Turygin said.
Vekselberg, who was in India to sign a raft of bilateral agreements, noted that BioMicroGel was named one of the world’s top 30 startups in water treatment at an international forum in Berlin recently.
That recognition opened the door to negotiations on a possible partnership with French energy major Total, among others, Turygin said.
The Ganges is the largest river in India, flowing out of the Himalayas and into the Bay of Bengal with a total length of 2,525 kilometers.
Its pollution levels in parts have been described as extreme, with raw sewage and industrial waste dumping a matter of routine for many inhabitants and companies.