Jakob Sadar is an ambitious mechatronics student, active in many fields - from sports to engineering. Whatever he does, he does with passion. He has always loved to innovate and assemble, and at the end of high school he was already on the entrepreneurial path ...
The idea for an innovative product came completely unexpectedly. He borrowed his father's prestigious wristwatch, which he accidentally scratched. Panicking about what to do, he started rubbing the scratch with his fingernail. And - amazingly - the scratch disappears! How so? Could the corrosion of the nail be the reason?
He approached his father with this idea. Initially angry when he heard about the accident with his watch, he and his son started thinking about the scratch and the nail. Is there really a trick in the rosary? At home in the garage, they started to make their first tests, then went on to work for a toolmaker. The rosin really worked as a polishing agent. Could he have used something other than the nail? Jacob decided to cow hornswhich are discarded as waste in the meat-processing industry. Currently, there are around 480 000 registered cattle in Slovenia alone, compared to 3.6 billion worldwide. All the tests have shown that we could use these waste cattle horns instead of synthetic diamonds - and get an equally effective polishing agent.
"I didn't think it would work like that... When we got the test results, I was surprised that I had invented it by accident," says Jacob. "Once I got confirmation from the experts, I felt confident to talk about my product."
The result is OPS (Organic Polishing Structure) - a revolutionary paste for polishing special steels, made from cow horn waste.
Jakob enters the competition My companyorganised by Junior Achievement Slovenia. He was nominated in 10 categories and won or came second or third in seven. In the main category, My Business, he swept the competition, qualifying him for the European competition, where he was among the TOP 5 companies in the "Entrepreneurship and circular economy" category.
He is invited to join a delegation to the EXPO in Dubai - Delegation for advanced materials and technology solutions for smart factories. As the youngest participant among outstanding entrepreneurs, sheikhs and innovators, he shone!
This was followed by Personal invitation to Brussels for a discussion by the European Commissionerto take part in a panel on "Empowering young people in entrepreneurship". This panel discussion made him well-known, as he started to receive many invitations to various European events.
While all this was going on, he was testing and refining his product. How to make it even better? How to deliver higher volumes? How to successfully penetrate the market?
At this point, he turned to the Catapult. "Catapult is good with prototypes like this and with industrialisation. At the moment, 5 kg of paste is made - for one polishing of a square decimetre of 2085 pre-prepared steel to a high gloss, you need 8 g."
More about the trap can be found at the link OPS-tech.org >>
Plans for the future? "I'm finishing my PhD and entering the world of entrepreneurship. That's it. In the next few years, I believe I will make it. Even with the help of the Catapult."
He is close to Richard Branson's thought, which he often likes to mention: "Starting your own business isn't just a job, is a way of life."
What advice can you give to those who have a good idea, maybe even a prototype, but fear of failure may be holding them back? "If you believe in yourself, if you believe in your innovation and if you persevere, the world is waiting for you with open arms."
