Meet us at Slush in Helsinki

Human Material Loop is heading to Slush 2024 in Helsinki, one of the world's leading startup and technology events, to connect with investors, founders and industry partners.

Founded in Helsinki, Slush brings together thousands of startup founders, investors and technology leaders from around the world. Known for its strong focus on early-stage technology companies and venture capital, it has become an important meeting point for the international startup ecosystem.

Human Material Loop is joining Slush as part of the Dutch trade mission to Helsinki, organized by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency together with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Finland and 4TU.

Zsofia Kollar, Vincent van den Ende, and Richard Georg Engström will represent Human Material Loop and share our work to transform human hair waste into a new source of natural textile fibers.

And since we are heading to Finland, we thought we would share a hair-related story from Finnish folklore.

One notable figure in the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, is Louhi, a powerful and often malevolent witch. She is known for her long, flowing hair, which folklore associates with magical power. In one tale, her magnificent hair is said to have the power to influence the weather, connecting hair with elemental forces. Louhi also uses her hair to weave spells, reinforcing the idea of hair as a conduit for strength and magic.

At Human Material Loop, we approach hair through material science rather than mythology, but the idea of hidden potential feels surprisingly familiar.

Human hair grows continuously. We cut it. We discard it. Yet it is a keratin-rich natural resource with remarkable material properties. Through ādara®, we are transforming it into a new generation of high-performance fibers for industrial applications.

Coming to Slush? Find us at the Dutch Pavilion. Look for the orange socks and hoodies, and the coffee machine that seems to be running continuously.

We may not be able to influence the weather like Louhi, but we can change what we consider a resource.