Promising tech start-ups reach Idea Challenge in Health and Wellbeing

11 November 2015 - EIT Digital, Europe’s leading open innovation organisation, has announced the finalists of its annual innovation competition - the Idea Challenge. Seventy-four start-ups from a total of more than 450 entries from 26 countries, will now pitch to a wide audience of potential buyers and investors at events across Europe.

Start-ups will compete in one of eight categories – each hosted by a different city. Three winners from each category will be chosen by an expert jury and will receive a package including a cash prize up to €40,000, mentoring support, workspace, and access to buyer networks across the EU and beyond. Winners will also be part of EIT Digital’s unique ecosystem, an international innovation network that includes global companies, world-leading universities and research institutes, and cutting-edge innovators.

“Our EIT Digital Idea Challenge has quickly established itself which is demonstrated by the fact that we attract high quality, high potential, disruptive digital innovators from across Europe. Scaling up these European start-ups to global actors in the world markets is central to our strategy to position Europe in the global digital economy.” states Willem Jonker, CEO of EIT Digital.

Pitch events started with the Future Cloud category final in Rennes on 19 and 20 October and will be followed by events in Berlin, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Paris, Stockholm and Trento.

Idea Challenge 2015 @ Eindhoven Innovation Day

The Idea Challenge Final in Health and Wellbeing, takes place in Eindhoven on Wednesday, 25 November and is embedded in the Innovation Day at the Conference Centre High Tech Campus. The Innovation Day has been organised by EIT Digital Eindhoven and is a summit of ICT innovation as showcased at an exhibition. On stage the Dutch EIT Digital partners Philips, NXP, TomTom and Bosch will show a tip of the iceberg on techno trends and how their companies strategy act on this.

The 10 competing Idea Challenge finalist will battle each other with a sharp 5 minute pitch on stage as well. Hence, visitors who want to know more on these top-notch start-ups may visit the finalists at the exhibition floor of Innovation Day. Good news is that the Dutch start-up Peeeks won the #2 prize of the Idea Challenge in Smart Energy Systems, last November 4th. Extra opportunity for visitors of Innovation day on 25 November is that Peeeks is also open for business at the Innovation exhibition!

The finalists in Health and Wellbeing are:

> Moodmetric
> Reta Al Alzheimer S.L.
> SENSOLUS
> Sennect UG
> GeniusChoice
> 7Mind GmbH
> DAMAE Medical
> LARAcompanion GmbH
> Aifloo AB
> Imagimob AB

Growth in variety and internationality

Coming from 17 different countries the entries have grown in both variety and geographical spread. This year for the first time teams from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal and Romania entered a final event. Having 15 teams chosen out of 93 submissions, Germany brought the most finalists in, followed by France and the Netherlands.