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EIT Community entrepreneurs among the 12 finalists of the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2017!

Women entrepreneurs from the EIT Community among the 12 finalists of the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2017!

Each year the European commission offers a prize for the most innovative women entrepreneurs in Europe.

The European Commission announced the finalists of its annual Prize for Women Innovators! The EIT is proud to have EIT Community entrepreneurs Sandra Rey (Glowee) and Kristina Tsvetanova (BLITAB Technology) included on the list! Congratulations! 

The finalists of the Horizon 2020-funded prize for women innovators  are 12 outstanding entrepreneurs who have brought breakthrough ideas to the market. All of the finalists have founded or co-founded a successful company and made their ideas a reality. On 8 March three of the finalists will win either EUR 100 000, EUR 50 000 or EUR 30 000.

Additionally, this year the EU has included a subcategory; the Rising Innovator. This recognises the excellence of women entrepreneurs under 30 and offers an extra award of EUR 20 000. Both Sandra and Kristina are eligible for this award.     

Take a look at the two inspirational women entrepreneurs from the EIT Community included on this year’s list:

Sandra Rey
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Sandra Rey is a passionate and imaginative entrepreneur, who mastered in industrial design and social entrepreneurship. She founded the EIT InnoEnergy supported start-up Glowee in 2014 and has since been supported by the EIT InnoEnergy Highway. The idea for Glowee, which is developing a biological source of light using the bioluminescent properties of marine micro-organisms, came to her when watching a nature programme about deep-sea bioluminescent creatures. By enabling bacteria to make light, Sandra and the team at Glowee have provided a living raw material which creates light entirely self-sufficiently. Sandra was also previously included in the MIT Technology review's list of Innovators under 35 in France and the 2017 Forbes 30 under 30 list of best young innovators in Europe. 


Kristina Tsvetanova
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Kristina Tsvetanova is the CEO and co-founder of EIT Digital-supported BLITAB Technology, named the World's Most Creative Start-up in 2015 and European Winner of the Social Entrepreneurship and Disability category. She is the co-inventor of the award-winning innovation BLITAB®- the first tactile tablet for blind and visually Impaired people. BLITAB Technology entered the EIT Community after winning the 2016 EIT Digital Challenge in the Digital Wellbeing category. Kristina recently successfully showcased her innovative tablet at CES in Las Vegas. It was named one of Las Vegas’s biggest launches by the BBC.
 

The EIT and Women entrepreneurs

Our experience shows that the biggest untapped entrepreneurial potential in Europe is women. Women constitute 52% of the European population but only 30% of entrepreneurs. The EIT Community is devoted to increasing the number of women in entrepreneurship and innovation.

One of our long-term objectives is to power women entrepreneurs and nurture women leaders by increasing the number of girls aged 12-18 interested in technology, digitalisation, entrepreneurship and leadership. We currently do this in a number of ways, such as:

- organising a series of women entrepreneurship activities, including technology and entrepreneurship-related workshops for girls.

- supporting a cooperation platform that implements women entrepreneurship & leadership activities. 

- supporting the expansion of the Skool coding competition Scratch Meccs open to female coders in the CEE region.
 


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