Winners have been announced for the 10th edition of the EIT Awards, which happened within the scope of the EIT Summit 2024 – the kick-off event for INNOVEIT.
The awards are a celebration and intend to recognize the individuals and teams demonstrating excellence in the areas and values held by the EIT – the use of science, technology, and innovation to have a lasting positive impact on society.
Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, Director-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission, highlighted that these awards showcase the best side of Europe:
“The EIT Awards celebrate innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe at its best. Every finalist here has excelled in their work, and proved to be true changemakers, innovators, and entrepreneurs.”
However, the awards are a reflection of the EIT's extensive, 15-year history in accelerating impact in Europe. With a proven track record of bringing together education, research, and business together to form the EIT community – a crossroads is where they can all thrive, though a variety of programs built for supporting innovation at every stage – from research and idea validation to investment and scaling.
Ahrenkilde Hansen stated that “Europe's innovation community is blooming like never before.” This is not in small part due to the EIT programs, which have led to it being named one of the top 10 accelerators in the world in the CB Report. The EIT has an impressive track record of output, including:
- A community of over 2,400 partners from industry research centers and universities, making it Europe's largest research network.
- 6,000 EIT alumni have graduated from programs, with thousands more taking part in the EIT skills courses.
- The EIT is on track to train 1 million deeptech talents by 2025.
- They have supported more than 8,000 ventures that have gone on to raise nearly 8 billion EUR in investment.
- 8 unicorns have been created.
- Over 2,000 new products have been brought to the market with the support of the EIT programs.
With the extensive number of programs, activities, and impact being generated by the EIT, the awards aim to spotlight the innovators even further putting in the hard work within the EIT community. Four awards were presented – the EIT Changemaker Award, the EIT Innovation Team Award, the EIT Venture Award, and the EIT Public Award. Here are the winners:
The EIT Changemaker Award
An award presented to the best role model and leader from within the EIT programs, who has gone on to drive social impact. The award was presented by last year's winner, Anna Vanderbruggen, who stated that winning the award marked true scientific recognition, provided a great push for her career, and made her even more determined to push the boundaries of her work in lithium battery recycling.
The winners:
1st place: Mohamed Elamir, co-founder of Woamy, which specialises in cellulose-based biofoams that serve as a strong, insulating, shock-proof, and sustainable alternative to plastic foams.
2nd place: Alba Forns Albuixech – COO and co-founder of Climatize, an impact investing platform bridging the climate finance gap by making it easy, transparent, and accessible to invest in renewable energy projects and potentially earn a return.
3rd place: Axel Rimbaud – the creator of MEL - a Chilean road safety NGO, working to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in road crashes to zero.
The EIT Innovation Team Award
This award honours teams made up of researchers, academics, and entrepreneurs who have developed a breakthrough product or service. The award was presented by Bernhard Adler, who shared words of advice:
“Behind every innovation a great team is there. Such an award, such a moment is what gives you a boost. You get visibility for investors, media, funding agencies. But don't forget, life won't get easy, there's still lots of work ahead”.
The winners:
1st place: Altris, represented by Christer Bergquist. Altris is a team revolutionising battery technology through specialising in sodium-ion batteries. Developed European supply chain, decoupled from unsafe materials. To store the renewable energy for deployment when necessary. From startup to industrial scale production with its first industrial-scale factory.
2nd place: Biosimulytics, represented by Dr. Johannes S. Biosimulytics is a team developing a quantum physics-based, AI/ML-powered pharmatech platform to improve the speed, scale, novelty, and success rate of drug development.
3rd place: HiQ-CARB, represented by Dr. Andreas Bittner. HiQ-CARB is a team that produces sustainable and resource-efficient nanomaterials for high-performance batteries, resulting in faster charging times and longer device lifespans. There are no European manufacturers, creating higher efficiency carbons for stronger battery cycle life. 90% reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
The EIT Venture Award
Presented to startups considered to have the greatest potential for impact on society and economy overall, addressing major societal challenges. Presented by Catherine Schreiber, whose key words of wisdom to the finalists was to prioritize their wellbeing – that only then will they be in a fit state to devote themselves to creating an impact-driven startup and continue helping others.
Winners:
1st place: Enline, represented by Manuel Lemos. Enline has created sensorless Digital Twin technology by combining science with software and AI, to provide a 7-day forecast of operations and up to a year of predictive vegetation and landslides monitoring.
2nd place: ReCatalyst, represented by Tomaž Bizjak. ReCatalyst transforms hydrogen technology, focusing on Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) to overcome scalability and cost challenges tied to precious metals like platinum.
3rd place: inHEART, represented by Jean-Marc Peyrat. inHEART transforms cardiology through an AI-driven digital twin of the patient's heart, created from pre-operative CT and MRI scans. This innovation identifies intervention targets before procedures, enhancing precision medicine in cardiology.
The EIT Public Award
The Public Award was open for public votes for one week, where the public could vote for any of their favourite semi-finalists. Presenting the award was Sabrina Malpede, who shared:
“The EIT brand is very well known. It's a sign that we've gone through due diligence. This award provides visibility in different countries. The word “entrepreneur” says a lot about what we are. People think we're almost superheroes (which we are), but people see only the good days. But we have good days, and we have bad days. And that's why we're here.”
1st place: HiQ-CARB, represented by Dr. Andreas Bittner
2nd place: Axel Rimbaud, creator of MEL
3rd place: ReCatalyst, represented by Tomaž Bizjak
It doesn't stop here – Kicking off #INNOVEIT and the EU Women Innovators Prize
With the EIT Summit 2024 is launched a new season of #INNOVEIT – a series of EIT community-led events across 4 European locations. Future events will be held at Hello Tomorrow in March in Paris, the Greentech Festival in June in Berlin, and Slush in November in Helsinki. Learn more here.
For the first time, the event also unveiled the EU Women Innovators Prize finalists, together with the European Innovation Council. Winners will be announced at the European Innovation Council Summit taking place in March 2024. The finalists are as follows:
The Rising Innovators category:
- Sara Correyero Plaza – Ienai
- Maria Gonzalez Manso – tucuvi
- Barbara Oliveira – Luminate
- Eva Sadoun – Lita.co
The EIT Women Leadership category:
- Julia Bialetska – S.lab
- Cristina Purtill – Plio Surgical
- Deniz Ficicioglu – BettaFish
The Women Innovators category:
- Elena Garcia Armada – Marsi Bionics
- Natalia Tomiyama – Nuwiel
- Rana Sanyal – RS Research
If you missed the event, you can watch it online, a recording of the Summit is available. Anyone interested in EIT programs and news can stay up to date at eit.europa.eu.
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