European Institute of Innovation and Technology

The 3 winners of the first EIT Entrepreneurship Award

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:33:00 +0100

They came, they saw, they conquered or as it happened today, they came, they pitched and they won.

Naked Energy, Trifense and Noem working in the field of climate change, ICT and sustainable energy respectively have been selected as the first winners of the EIT entrepreneurship award and were presented with their award by Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner responsible for the EIT.

Encouraging entrepreneurship is a key element of the EIT's mission and so the first EIT Entrepreneurship Awards put the spotlight on the most promising ventures that have emerged from each of three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs): Climate-KIC, EIT ICT Labs and KIC InnoEnergy.

Nine nominated ventures were invited to Brussels to pitch their business ideas to an expert audience. “I am extremely impressed with the nine ventures that pitched for the EIT Awards today and am delighted to see such dedicated and committed entrepreneurs already emerging from our innovation factories (KICs)” says Alexander von Gabain - Chairman of the EIT Governing Board. “I congratulate all finalists for their ideas and creative solutions to today’s challenges and wish them success in growing to become true world class enterprises!”, he adds.

This award was an important part of the first Entrepreneurship Summit, which was jointly organized by Science Business and the EIT in the Royal Academy of Sciences in Brussels. At the same time, the Science|Business Innovation Board, a not-for-profit association, awarded four prizes in its fourth annual Academic Enterprise Awards (ACES) competition. The companies which won the ACES competition are: Mendeley, Endomagnetics, EVO Electric and Clariton.

EIT Entrepreneurship Award winners

EIT Climate Change Award: NAKED ENERGY
A design and innovation company developing solar technology that electricity and heat
More info: nakedenergy.co.uk

EIT ICT Entrepreneurship Award: TRIFENSE
Venture specializing in protecting computer networks against cyber threats

More info: trifense.de

EIT Sustainable Energy Entrepreneurship Award: NOEM
Company using sustainable wooden materials for construction.

More info: noem.com

More details and profiles of the EIT winners are available at www.eitawards.eu

ACES Award winners

Microsoft Award - Mendeley

Life Sciences Award - Endomagnetics

Materials/Engineering Award- EVO Electric

Young Entrepreneur Award – Clariton

More information: www.sciencebusiness.net

Background:

This competition highlights and encourages entrepreneurial ventures within the EIT's three thematic areas and nine ventures nominated by the EIT’s three KICs (Climate-KIC, EIT ICT Labs and KIC InnoEnergy) competed in the first edition of the EIT entrepreneurship award. The award was launched in 2011 and culminated in a high level conference.

For more information:

About the EIT Awards:
Caroline Vandenplas - Communications Officer, EIT
caroline.vandenplas@eit.europa.eu
+36 (1) 4819371

About the ACES:
Gail Edmondson - Editorial Director, Science|Business
gail.edmondson@sciencebusiness.net
+49 (30) 30 20 93 20

The EIT launches the selection of 12 new members for its Governing Board

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0100

To lead this process, the EIT Governing Board (GB) has appointed a Steering Committee that is responsible for identifying a list of potential candidates that will be submitted by the EIT Governing Board to the European Commission. This Steering Committee will guarantee the independence, legitimacy and credibility of the selection process. Starting in February 2012, the work of the identification Committee is expected to take approximately five months.

The Steering Committee is composed of four out of the twelve outgoing GB members:

Bertrand Collomb, Honorary Chairman, Lafarge; Institut des Hautes Etudes pour la Science et la Technologie (IHEST)

Giovanni Colombo, Adjunct Professor, Politecnico di Torino, Former CTO, Telecom Italia LAB and Head of long-term research, Telecom Italia

Anders Flodström, Former University Chancellor, Swedish National Agency for Higher Education

Julia King, Vice-Chancellor, Aston University, Professor of Materials Engineering, Former Director of Engineering, Marine Business, Rolls-Royce plc

The selection process for the identification of the twelve new appointed EIT GB members consists of a call for expression of interest {insert hyperlink to call text}. The Steering Committee will prepare a list of individuals to be proposed as members of the future EIT Governing Board. The GB will formally transmit the shortlist to the European Commission for the formal appointment of the twelve new EIT Governing Board members. On the basis of this proposal, the Commission will send a report summarising the selection process and its results to the Council and the European Parliament, who have a period of one month to take cognisance of the outcome of the selection process. The twelve members of the Governing Board will then be nominated based on a Commission Decision by the end of July 2012.

How to apply to the call for expression of interest?

This is outlined in the call for expression of interest.

Deadline: 09 April at 24:00 CET

Background

In accordance with the EIT Regulation, 12 members appointed to the EIT Governing Board in 2008 have a four year mandate coming to an end on 31 July 2012 and as such, this call for expression of interest will aim to identify future candidates for the EIT Governing Board. The newly appointed GB members will join the six appointed EIT Governing Board members with a six year mandate (until 31 July 2014) and four representative members.

The Governing Board is the EIT’s principal body entrusted with providing the strategic leadership of the Institute. It is independent and autonomous in its decision-making and in particular is responsible for the selection, designation and evaluation of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs).

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is an independent body of the European Union, set up in 2008. The EIT aims to give Europe’s innovation capacity a much needed boost and its overall goal is to create a new European way of delivering essential economic growth and societal benefits through innovation by helping transform innovative ideas into products and services that create sustainable growth and jobs.

The EIT primarily operates by Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), which are the operational base of the EIT. The KICs are excellence-driven partnerships, which bring together the whole innovation web in order to offer new opportunities for innovation in Europe and generate real impact in terms of new business creation and societal benefits. The KICs enable top-class European education, research and business hotspots to form entrepreneurial and excellence driven innovation factories. They address focused innovation topics and integrate public and private research organisations, innovative industries, higher education institutions, investors, start-ups and spin-offs.

More information: http://eit.europa.eu

EIT ICT Labs at Destination Europe in Cambridge, MA: "The US is looking at us"

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:19:00 +0100

With the focus on “Europe being a fertile soil for innovation”, EIT ICT Labs CEO Willem Jonker presented the research and innovation opportunities provided by EIT ICT Labs at the conference “Destination Europe” held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on January 20, 2012.

The conference is the first in a series of initiatives taken by the European Commission, DG RTD (Research & Innovation) with the objective to raise awareness of the attractiveness of Europe as an excellent location for research and innovation and especially highlighting the attractive opportunities for women researchers in Europe.

Read the full report on eit.ictlabs.eu

EIT Awards: One man's journey from art to ads to solar panels produced Naked Energy

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:17:00 +0100

For a career path, Christophe Williams has not made the obvious choices. He started at St. Martin's art college in London, and went on to be a creative executive in the ad world. But then he went solar, founding Naked Energy, a renewable energy company. And now his company has been nominated as a finalist in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's (EIT) entrepreneurship awards.

Read the news on eitawards.eu

Selecting new members of the EIT Governing Board

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:17:00 +0100

The EIT is pleased to announce it will be launching a call for expression of interest for 12 new members of the EIT Governing Board. The EIT Governing Board is the institute’s principal governing body entrusted with providing the strategic leadership of the EIT and is independent and autonomous in its decision-making.

More information on the selection process and criteria will follow in the coming days.

KIC InnoEnergy launches EcoEmprendedor XXI Contest in Barcelona

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:36:00 +0100

The second edition of the contest EcoEmprendedor XXI, an entrepreneurship program focused on cleantech ventures, was launched last month in Barcelona. In this new edition, KIC InnoEnergy will be active part of the organisation and one of the sponsoring institutions.

Participants will compete for the EcoEmprendedor XXI award valued at 35,000 euros. The award includes cash, training activities, business incubation and support for internationalization. From the 13 projects of the first edition, 10 have incorporated a company and 3 have won other industry awards.

Website (in Spanish)

Launch of the Climate-KIC Alumni Association

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:07:00 +0100

More than fifty alumni, students and Pioneers into Practice (PiPs) gathered in Wageningen on 14-15 January to launch the Alumni Association in the presence of Climate-KIC and EIT representatives. During a fruitful and energetic weekend the first official Climate-KIC alumni board was formed.

Mary Ritter, the Climate-KIC CEO, described the alumni association as an "important and highly innovative project". In particular, she highlighted the process to become a legal entity and to become affiliate partner in Climate-KIC.

Host your event at the EIT Headquarters: call is open – apply now!

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:31:00 +0100

Call for Ideas/Participation in Knowledge Sharing at the EIT Headquarters

The EIT is launching a call for participation in knowledge sharing by hosting conferences, seminars, workshops etc at its headquarters in Budapest.

The EIT will provide you with a meeting platform. You organise, we facilitate!

This is another step in getting together the wider community of EIT’s stakeholders.

What does the EIT offer?

meeting space with technical facilities for up to a maximum of 50 attendees per event
usage of the EIT logo;
online promotion of the event via EIT channels (including website and social media);
ex-post online dissemination of the events’ results and findings including the EIT and KICs web pages, etc.

Furthermore the EIT might provide catering services to the meeting subject to prior agreement.

How to?

This is a running call. One can always submit an application. The pilot phase ends on 31 December 2012.

Apply here

KIC InnoEnergy students selected for the Hult Global Case Challenge

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:54:00 +0100

The Hult Global Case Challenge announced a students team from KIC InnoEnergy (one of the EIT's Knowledge and Innovation Communities) has been accepted and will compete in the 3rd Annual Hult Global Case Challenge (Hult GCC) – an initiative that brings together top students from all over the globe to generate solutions to the world's most pressing social challenges.

The 2012 Hult Global Case Challenge will focus on breaking the cycle of global poverty through developing sustainable solutions that will provide affordable housing, affordable energy, and affordable education to the bottom of the pyramid. USD 1 million in seed capital is made available annually to provide funding to pilot the very best ideas.

Each team selected was chosen from more than 4,000 applications received. Most colleges and universities had multiple team applicants with one or two teams from each school being chosen.

The Hult GCC regional competitions will take place on February 24-25, 2012 on Hult International Business School’s five campuses in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai and Shanghai. KIC InnoEnergy's team will compete in London.

About KIC InnoEnergy's team

EIT's KIC InnoEnergy’s team members include:

Eduardo M. Appleyard - Team Captain - from Canada/Argentina
Francesco Fuso-Nerini from Milano Italy
Vincenzo Capogna from Rome, Italy
Oisin Tummon from South Africa
Eric Bowler from Chicago, USA

They were all enrolled in KIC InnoEnergy's Master SELECT.

The objective of the team is to find a solution for Solaraid a UK based NGO for the mass implementation of micro solar products in Africa.

The team

To learn more about the Hult Global Case Challenge, please visit the Hult GCC website, or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

Administrative announcement: cancellation of call for independent experts (2009)

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:31:00 +0100

For administrative reasons the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has to cancel and close the call for expression of interest for the establishment of a database of independent experts published in 2009. Please be informed that the experts’ database will be cancelled and closed by 31 January 2012.

We would like to assure you that the personal data of the experts included in the database was processed pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data. In case you have queries concerning the processing of your personal data, please address them to the EIT’s Data Protection Officer: EIT-DPO@eit.europa.eu.

Please note that in the future the EIT may appoint experts from the European Commission’s databases and/or from the shortlists established inter alia by DG Research and Innovation (more information) and DG Education and Culture.

We thank you for your interest in working for the EIT as an expert and strongly encourage you to register in the European Commission’s experts’ databases. We are looking forward for future collaboration with you.

EIT Krakow conference (October '11): Videos online!

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:57:00 +0100

The films of the EIT Youth & Entrepreneurship conference have been released.

View the YouTube playlist

View the videos in the Storify of the conference

For any personal request regarding these videos, please contact EIT-conference@eit.europa.eu

EIT awards: A Dutch spin-out wants to see solar panels everywhere

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:17:00 +0100

Two Delft graduates, named as EIT Awards finalists by the Climate-KIC, are working at Schiphol airport to develop lightweight, flexible solar panel supports.

Thomas de Leeuw and Jan van Kranendonk, who both graduated in December 2011 with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University of Technology, were far more ambitious than most students. During their studies they founded the solar energy company Sunuru, wrote their respective Masters theses on the commercial and technical feasibility of Sunuru, and secured a Dutch patent for their product.

Read the full entry on eitawards.eu

EIT awards: with Blaast, a smartphone is just a Blaast away

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:14:00 +0100

Finnish start-up Blaast, nominated for an EIT Award by the ICT KIC, has an 'app' to make your phone a smartphone.

The main aim of Blaast is to bring mobile applications and a smartphone user experience to people who don't own top-of-the-range phones. With Blaast, the "apps" run in a cloud computing environment - on remote computer servers connected to the phones, rather than on the devices themselves.

Read the full entry on eitawards.eu

Master students: write your Master Thesis with EIT!

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:18:00 +0100

ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION

- In order to be eligible for this scheme you must be currently enrolled in a Masters Programme offered by one of the universities or Higher Education institutes that is a partner of one of the EIT’s KICs. See the list of partner universities.

- Your thesis should be drafted in English language (EIT's official working language) or translated into English from your original language. The EIT can not cover the translation costs.

More info

EIT awards finalist: Ennesys wants to cover your building in algae

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:06:00 +0100

Here's a new approach to bio-energy: Flat panels of algae growing on the side of an office building. That's the vision of a French start-up named as an EIT Awards finalist by the Climate-KIC.

It's hard to imagine that tiny algae could generate enough energy to heat a building, reduce carbon dioxide emissions and clean wastewater. Yet at Ennesys, founded in January 2010 by entrepreneurs Jean-Louis Kindler and Pierre Tauzinat, the technology is being developed to do just that.

Read the full entry on eitawards.eu

Photo: Jean-Louis Kindler, co-founder of Ennesys

Memo to entrepreneurs: location counts if you want to start a business

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:27:00 +0100

Was one of your New Year's resolutions to finally start your own business? If so, there's growing evidence that suggests at least three things matter a lot: location, location and location.

A broad set of international data compiled and analysed recently by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based policy research organisation, shows huge variation from one country to another in the business of starting a business, even within Europe. Public attitudes, paperwork requirements, supply of capital, the dynamics in each sector - all show perplexing variation, and can make it easy or hard to get your venture going.

Read this entry on eitawards.eu

EIT awards finalist: Think CO2 wants to build your ideal 21st century home

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:12:00 +0100

Mobile, pre-fab and sustainable – that's what the modern dwelling needs to be, says a Spanish start-up named as an EIT Awards finalist by KIC InnoEnergy.

Rosa Vilarasau was approaching her 40th birthday when she decided she had had enough of working for a Spanish confectionary company. "If I'm going to do something on my own, it has to be now," she recalls thinking to herself.

So she contacted a university friend, Pol Guiu, and they started throwing venture ideas around. They finally hit on one that chimed with them both: designing the perfect 21st century house. What's that? In their view, it's a sustainable, mobile home, NOEM.

Read this entry on eitawards.eu

Photos: Rosa Vilarasau, Think CO2 / NOEM sustainable house

EIT awards finalist: Heliocaminus wants to see a solar collector on every roof

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:40:00 +0100

Why can't solar panels be easier, better and - well, prettier? A Swedish start-up, named an EIT Awards finalist by KIC Innoenergy, is developing new panels with the homeowner in mind.

Erik Hindrikes and Viktor Ölén met each other on their first day at university in Sweden. At the time there was little to suggest they might one day be business partners. But in the summer of 2010, during a university reunion weekend, Hindrikes recalls his friend saying to him: "I want to start a business. How about it?"

Article by Anna Jenkinson, Science|Business.

Read the full version on eitawards.eu

Photo: Erik Hindrikes, co-founder, Heliocaminus

EIT Budapest is searching for talents!

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:43:00 +0100

The EIT is looking to recruit five new members of staff to join its headquarters in Budapest, Hungary.

The five posts currently open until 31st January are:

Head of Unit for the Intelligence Unit
Seconded National Expert (SNE) for Grant Simplification Management
Seconded National Expert (SNE) for New Innovation Funding Instruments
Seconded National Expert (SNE) for Knowledge Triangle Policies
Seconded National Expert (SNE) for Knowledge Triangle Good Practice

For more information on these posts and information on how to apply, visit our Careers page.

7 tips if you want to start your own company, by Richard L. Hudson

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:24:00 +0100

Richard L. Hudson is CEO and Editor of Science|Business.

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The economic news is grim these days. But so what? If you have a dream to start a company, just do it anyway - or so say some experts that the EIT invited to discuss the do's and don'ts of starting a business.

"Don't let the environment of the economy stop you; just do it now," said Bruno Claude, a Belgian entrepreneur and former CEO of Swiss Cablecom. "There's a lot of risk in being an entrepreneur. When you're young you can pick up the pieces and move on. So don't wait."

That advice, from one of the international cable-telecommunications industry's most successful entrepreneurs, was among several tips offered at the EIT entrepreneurship conference organized in Krakow Oct. 21-22. Promoting entrepreneurship is central to the EIT's mission - and is also why it recently launched its first EIT Awards contest. For that, nine start-ups have been nominated for three prizes, to be awarded at a conference and awards ceremony on 21 February in Brussels.

Read the 7 top tips to become a successful entrepreneur