Today, six winners were announced in EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge in Helsinki and Munich, in the categories of Smart Spaces and Cyber-Physical Systems.
A total number of 19 teams presented their pitch in the Munich final in the category Cyber-Physical Systems, and the Helsinki final in Smart Spaces, which took place in parallel finals. Participants had had the chance to participate in pitch trainings and other interesting workshops before they finally pitched their ideas on stage in front of the jury members including industry experts, investors, business accelerators, and entrepreneurs, such as Michael Baum (CEO of FOUNDERS.org), Stefan Tirtey (Director of SoundCloud), Jari Mieskonen (Managing Partner of Conor Venture Partners), and Risto Valtakari (Managing Partner of Gottberg Services).
Munich: And the winner is... Konux!
The grand prize winner in the category Cyber-Physical Systems is Konux. Vlad Lata, Andreas Kunze and Michael Wax from CDTM in Munich took home the 40,000 Euro award for their proposal, with which they want to revolutionize the mechanical sensor market. Konux provides customizable sensor solutions to equipment manufacturers.
The second prize of 25,000 Euro went to the team of Kinexon, also from Germany. Finally, the startup 3YOURMIND won the third prize of 15,000 with their proposal for a 3D-Printing button for CAD programs. With the plugin modelers save time and money creating professional 3D-Printed models.
The winners were announced at Siemens New Ventures Forum, organized by EIT ICT Labs partners Siemens and the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM).
In Helsinki, Homey from the Netherlands won the final
The Dutch startup Homey had the most innovative idea in the field of Smart Spaces and won the first price. Homey developed a technology to automate home entertainment. QGo won the second prize and the startup by the name of Avansera took the third place.
Office space and coaching, and more
All winners have not only received an essential amount of cash to get their businesses up and running, but also secured themselves a place in the EIT ICT Labs ecosystem that includes the world’s leading organizations, universities, research institutes and companies, in the field of ICT. Additionally they can use office space for six months in one of the EIT ICT Labs’ Co-Location Centres in Europe and receive coaching and mentoring support from the organization’s Business Development Accelerator.
8 cities. 8 topics. One challenge
The Idea Challenge is divided into two waves. In this current first wave teams and individuals were asked to submit ideas to address tech trends in the categories of "Future Cloud" and "Health & Wellbeing", other than the already mentioned Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Spaces.
The submission phase for the second phase will be open as of September 1, 2014. Ideas that address "Cyber Security and Privacy", "Internet of Things", "Urban Life and Mobility" and "Smart Energy Systems" can be submitted through www.ideachallenge.eitictlabs.eu.
EIT ICT Labs Idea Challenge is also available at
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