Here are the winners of the 2017 Stockholm Innovation Scholarship

Mayor of Stockholm Karin Wanngård has presented the Stockholm Innovation Scholarship to five recipients at a ceremony at Stockholm City Hall. The jury, consisting of 27 renowned experts from Stockholm's business and innovation ecosystem, has identified the innovations with the best potential to become Stockholm's future growth companies, among 500 scholarship applications.

"This year’s winners show the impressive width of the innovators in our city, ranging from smart every day solutions to advanced life science. Stockholm’s leading role as an innovation hub is crucial to attracting business and investments to the city. This award is a great way to encourage smart ideas and creative development", says Karin Wanngård, Mayor of Stockholm.

Here are the winners in each scholarship category, including the jury's motivation.

Simplify everyday life

PANQ: Makes the process of getting control of your debt as easy as getting into it. 
Winner: Axel Magnusson (team Niclas Roos, Erik Lundin)
Jury's motivation: With a simple, digital tool, the scholarship-winner wants to make it easier for everyone who currently has debt to do the right thing. Digitizing a stigmatized industry can give more power and control to indebted individuals, with both emotional and financial benefits for individuals and society overall as a result. 

Creative industries

Stagecast: An interaction and augmented reality platform for live entertainment events.
Winner: Hedvig Ahlgren (team Jonas Hermann, Markus Wallentin, Robin Bugdahn and Stefan Hellqvist)
Jury's motivation: In the meeting between people and technology, this year’s scholarship-winner puts people first. Just as the islands of Stockholm are connected by bridges, this innovation connects us together, as co-creators, in the human desire to gather around music.

Life science and health

Amma: A digital midwife in your pocket, always ready to support mothers who are struggling with their breastfeeding.
Winner: Carina Franzén (team Fritzi Töpfer)
Jury'smotivation: A well-defined clinical need with a global market. A driven team with deep insights into the problem and an innovative solution in development. The team combines heart and intellect in its aim to create a high-tech product that produces the best conditions for people in the very first phase of life. 

Travel and tourism

Cheffle: An online meeting place for professionals, solving the recruitment problem in the hospitality industry.
Winner: Max Dyrhage (team Håkan Dyrhage, Emil Karlsson, Oscar Melin)
Jury's motivation: An innovative and smart solution that streamlines the recruitment process so that people with the right skills are paired with the right job in an industry that is rapidly expanding, and facing a distinct skills supply challenge. 

Social impact and sustainability

Diretto: A platform for creating new paths into the labour market. 
Winner: Anna Leinder (team Peter Leinder)
Jury's motivation: The winning innovation addresses several social challenges in Sweden, and excellent potential exists for this concept to spread to other countries. This innovation facilitates a more accountable and just system for positions in which the employer is a private individual – it makes doing the right thing easy. 

About the Stockholm Innovation Scholarship

The Stockholm Innovation Scholarship is presented in five categories: Simplify everyday life; Creative industries; Life science and health; Travel and tourism; and Social impact and sustainability. To be nominated, the competitor must live, work or study in Stockholm County. Each winner is awarded a scholarship of SEK 100,000 as well as expert guidance from Start-Up Stockholm. The scholarships were presented by Mayor of Stockholm Karin Wanngård at a ceremony in Stockholm City Hall on November 27. The scholarship is run by Invest Stockholm, with funds from the city and the Agne Johansson Memorial Fund Foundation.

For more information, visit www.innovationsstipendiet.se.

Contact

Kerstin von Bergen, project manager, Stockholm Innovation Scholarship, Invest Stockholm
kerstin.von.bergen@stockholm.se, +46 (0) 70 47 280 54