{"id":5077,"date":"2020-09-14T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T08:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2020-08-15T14:06:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T12:06:41","slug":"eth-wunderkind-founds-start-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/eth-wunderkind-founds-start-up\/","title":{"rendered":"ETH wunderkind founds start-up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gnanli Landrou grew up in a clay building in Togo and only went to school at the age of 16. Today he is a star at ETH and has founded a start-up for ecological concrete. Read his unusual story here.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"5078\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/eth-wunderkind-founds-start-up\/eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645.jpg?fit=882%2C495&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"882,495\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645.jpg?fit=882%2C495&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645.jpg?fit=882%2C495&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/eth-zurich-klagt-gegen-online-magazin-2645.jpg?resize=882%2C495&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5078\" width=\"882\" height=\"495\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The\n31-year-old ETH researcher Gnanli Landrou grew up in Togo, West Africa. He came\nto France at the age of 16 and went to school there for the first time. In the\nmeantime, he has made the leap to Switzerland and become a young entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fascinating story<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Born\ninto the Kabiy\u00e9 people of northern Togo, Gnanli Landrou grew up in a big\nfamily. But at a young age already he was sent to his uncle, a migrant worker,\nwho offered his services together with others of the local population. While\nthe adults of the group helped with sowing, harvesting or building mud houses,\nGnanli Landrou brought the elderly water, food or was entrusted with carrying\nbricks. There were no school lessons as we know them: Gnanli Landrou learned\nfrom the elders. His experience with clay buildings helps him today as a young\nentrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Live in Switzerland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At\nthe age of 16 his family enabled Gnanli Landrou to travel to France. It was his\nhost family who sent him to school for the first time. In only two years he\nmanaged to master the school material for the Baccalaur\u00e9at, the French Matura.\nAfter studying materials science in western France, Gnanli Landrou finally came\nto Switzerland for his doctorate. Gnanli Landrou was awarded the ETH Medal in\n2018 for his dissertation at the Chair for Sustainable Building at ETH Zurich\nunder the supervision of Guillaume Habert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Oxara &#8211; sustainable concrete<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Together with his business partner Thibault Demoulin, Gnanli Landrou founded the startup <a href=\"https:\/\/oxara.ch\/about-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Oxara (opens in a new tab)\">Oxara<\/a>. The environmental start-up produces a cement-free building material for the construction of houses, which is more environmentally friendly and cheaper than concrete. Conventional concrete is made from cement, which is energy-intensive to produce, and the limited raw materials gravel and sand. Oxara&#8217;s earth concrete, on the other hand, uses excavated material that would otherwise end up in the landfill. This special concrete hardens within 24 to 48 hours and is suitable for non-load-bearing elements in houses with up to three stories. The Oxara earth concrete is currently being tested in various pilot projects. The application potential for the eco-concrete is enormous in both developed and developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Source: NZZ am Sonntag from 18.07.2020<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you have any innovative business idea you would like to make come true? Use STARTUPS.CH experts to become self-employed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a class=\"postButton\" href=\"https:\/\/www.startups.ch\/en\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00bb Blog<\/a><a class=\"postButton\" href=\"https:\/\/www.startups.ch\/en\/services\/business-incorporation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00bb Found online<\/a>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gnanli Landrou grew up in a clay building in Togo and only went to school at the age of 16. Today he is a star at ETH and has founded a start-up for ecological concrete. Read his unusual story here. The 31-year-old ETH researcher Gnanli Landrou grew up in Togo, West Africa. He came to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[381],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":830,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54Pb1-1jT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5096,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions\/5096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}