Meet the Partners: F6S

As the CILANTRO project pushes the boundaries of science, we are stepping outside the laboratory for our latest “Meet the Partners” spotlight. This week, we are featuring the team from F6S: Natalia Cardona, Joanna Makocka, and Michalis Vasilakis.

While our consortium partners focus on the core chemistry and engineering of carbon-negative cement, F6S is responsible for the project’s communication, sharing results, and commercial strategy. In short, F6S acts as the bridge between laboratory research and the real-world market.

More Than a Corporate Partner: A Global Growth Network

What makes F6S interesting is its massive scale. Rather than acting as a typical corporate partner, F6S is a global growth network of over four million founders, startups, and tech accelerators.

Managing nearly 100 active EU projects, F6S has an incredible view of emerging technology trends in Europe. The team is expert at community building and connecting green innovations with the industries that need them most.

The Team Behind the Strategy

Led by Project Manager Natalia Cardona, the F6S team wants to make sure CILANTRO creates a real industrial impact. The cement industry is traditionally very conservative and difficult to change, so the team wants to ensure the project doesn’t just stay on paper as an academic exercise.

Instead, the goal is to make our laboratory breakthroughs commercially attractive to equipment manufacturers and global cement companies. To help achieve this, Joanna Makocka is managing the project’s intellectual property rights and patent strategy, ensuring our technical discoveries are legally protected and fully prepared for industrial licensing.

Spreading the word about these breakthroughs is Michalis Vasilakis, who handles the project’s communications and dissemination to ensure our progress reaches the wider professional community and the public.

Natalia’s Perspective

As the lead driving these results from lab to market, Natalia Cardona shared what excites her most about this EIC Pathfinder initiative:

“What excites me most is that we are aiming to turn cement from a major polluter into a net-negative carbon sink. Leveraging our network to help find the right industrial partners and support the patenting process is a great opportunity. I look forward to seeing our results protected and perfectly positioned for real-world scaling.”

– Natalia Cardona, F6S Project Manager

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.