Grown in the creative workshop

by Isabelle Vloemans
28 November 2025

Student Project House

Grown in the creative workshop

by Isabelle Vloemans
28 November 2025

Thanks to private donations, the Student Project House at ETH Zurich provides fertile ground for initiatives where students can flourish as makers and innovators. Here, they test ideas, build prototypes and connect with like-minded people.

A selection

Projects and start-ups that began life in the Student Project House:

Autonomous River Cleanup

Clean rivers through technology

This student project from the Robotic Systems Lab uses robotics and machine learning to tackle water pollution and develop new strategies for circular waste management.

Fabas

Versatile bean protein

This start-up delivers bean-based ingredients that help create sustainable, nutrient-rich alternatives to animal products – using only pulses grown from regenerative agriculture in Switzerland.

Riverkin

High-resolution freshwater monitoring

Riverkin sensors make it possible to track water quality, support nature conservation and improve water management. The technology, developed by Jessica Droujko, helps to quantify risks such as flooding and take appropriate action.

Sophia Edu Labs

Supportive AI tutor

Two ETH master’s students in computer science have launched a start-up to offer high-quality, affordable one-to-one online tutoring.

Synature

Smart microphones for biodiversity

These intelligent microphones can recognise more than 10,000 species by sound, autonomously recording data on biodiversity. This enables efficient monitoring of conservation and regenerative agriculture measures.

Tethys Robotics

Powerful underwater drone

Jonas Wüst and Pragash Sivananthaguru have developed a drone that can navigate underwater using acoustic sensors – making it ideal for tasks such as search operations in strong currents.

Treeless

Cellulose without trees

Can packaging, adhesives and cosmetics be developed without using synthetic or harmful substances? Treeless is researching and producing bio-based materials made from cellulose – entirely wood-free and created by microorganisms.

Unbound Potential

A new kind of battery

The ETH spin-off’s redox flow battery makes long-term storage of renewable energy more cost-effective, sustainable and efficient. By using immiscible electrolytes, it operates without a membrane for ion transfer.

More space for inventing and experimenting

The Student Project House already receives support from the Asuera Stiftung, Baugarten Stiftung, Inger and Dr Norbert Bischofberger, Ernst Göhner Foundation, Fondation Alcea, Franke, Dipl. Ing. Walter Fust, Georg H. Endress Stiftung, Georg und Bertha Schwyzer-Winiker Stiftung, Petra König Pirola, Plastic Omnium, Stiftung e-na’bel, Trilogos Fonds and Georg Wacker.

Two new goals to be developed with partners are the launch of a state-of-theart Food Lab and the expansion of the Digital Makerspace.

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