Solar Impulse Foundation
The Solar Impulse Foundation is a Swiss non-profit organization established by explorer Dr Bertrand Piccard to accelerate the adoption of clean and profitable climate solutions worldwide. Inspired by Piccard’s historic solar-powered flight around the world, the Foundation has certified over 1,000 technologies that prove sustainability and economic growth can go hand in hand. Its “Efficient Solution Label” highlights innovations across energy, mobility, construction, and more, enabling governments and businesses to choose practical ways to reduce environmental impact.
The Pioneer Awards are the Foundation’s prestigious honors, celebrating real-world collaborations between technology innovators and adopters. Winners are recognized for demonstrating measurable, scalable ecological impact. Each year, five collaborations are awarded across sectors like agrifood, building, mobility, and utilities.
The Pioneers Forum is the Foundation’s annual flagship event, gathering over 300 sustainability leaders in Brussels. It features inspiring keynotes, matchmaking sessions, exhibitions, and the Pioneer Awards ceremony. Forum participants exchange ideas, form new partnerships, and drive climate solutions beyond theory into action—making the Pioneers Forum a catalyst for meaningful change in Europe and worldwide.
Pioneers Forum 2025
The Pioneers Forum 2025 was held on 8th October in Brussels, at the beautiful La Maison de la Poste, a vibrant hub where history, innovation, and global gatherings converge. Over 320 participants from around the world took part in the one-day event packed with innovation pitches and conversations.
In the morning, the event kicked off with the Opening Keynote and Pioneer Awards 2025 Pitches. This was followed by the Climate Impulse session, where Dr. Bertrand Piccard introduced the world’s first green hydrogen-powered airplane designed for a groundbreaking non-stop, nine-day, zero-emission flight around the globe in 2028.
“2026 will be a crucial year as the plane is expected to be revealed and its first test flights performed. The aircraft’s assembly will take place at Châteauroux Airport, bringing together all key components, including the cockpit, wings, hydrogen tank pods, and propulsion system.”
Networking lunch and coffee breaks provided lively opportunities, followed by B2B Networking Sessions from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm. In this “quick dating” session, event participants—including innovators, corporates, policymakers, representatives of cities, and accelerators—scheduled 15-minute 1:1 meetings to explore business and partnership opportunities. Supported by the Brella, the web and mobile app efficiently matched users with aligned objectives and allowed review of attendee information for scheduling meetings.
We connected with potential partners and customers during the quick networking meetings. Delicious coffee and chocolate helped spark effective conversations and foster collaboration.
Pioneer Awards 2025
We were honored to participate in the Pioneers Forum 2025, the Pioneer Awards 2025 Pitches and Ceremony.
Among 10 Pioneer Awards finalist duos (tech developer + adopter) across five tech domains, selected from over 200 applications, each team presented their energy-efficient innovations and answered questions from distinguished guest judges during the morning pitching session. The top performers received the Winner Awards.
Robotics Cats and Indicium Dynamics were a finalist duo. We presented how Indicium Dynamics integrated Robotics Cats’ AI wildfire detection into its IoT cloud platform to provide early bushfire detection solutions to customers in Tasmania. We explained our solution’s evolution, incorporating satellite detection and drone-powered quick suppression to add further value for customers. We also shared plans to replicate this innovative autonomous wildfire response system in Asia and the EU markets.
We are proud to have been selected as the Pioneer Awards 2025 Winner in the Agrifood and Natural Environment category, receiving the award from Mr. Jean-Luc Crucke, the Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility, Climate and Environment, and Dr. Bertrand Piccard.
Congratulations to all Pioneer Awards 2025 winners! Indeed, every Pioneers Forum participant is a winner — we all celebrated and shared in the success of the event.
Please contact us at info@roboticscats.com if you want more info about our AI wildfire detection solution or Pioneer Awards.
[Credit: photos are provided by Solar Impulse Foundation. Photographer is Aurelien Delacroix]
