Impact Innovators Tech Fest

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Young pioneers

set an example

Moonshots

for Europe

MORE THAN A MAGAZINE

WINTER 2018

EU TOP 50

FOUNDERS

+ TECH FESTIVAL

startup.ieee.org

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

Creating a space for tech entrepreneurs to learn from one

another, share their experiences, and discuss what drives

them to advance technology for the benefit of humanity.

Engineering Driven Start-Up Community

urope is on a mission to innovate with impact, across borders,

sectors, and societies, to accelerate the journey towards a

sustainable continent - and world - that leaves no one behind.

Thankfully, there is an exciting conveyor belt of young Europeans who

are wasting no time in applying their skills to kickstart businesses that

are striving to contribute.

This edition of Impact Innovators, produced in collaboration

with Knowledge4Innovation, is all about the EUTOP50 Founders

& Tech Festival. Launched in 2017, it has quickly established itself

as an important platform dedicated to facilitating meaningful

experiences that can support the ambitions of startups. Feedback

from the frst cohort was positive, with many citing the access it

ofered to policy makers - as well as to investors and corporates – as

a major USP. Listening to what these early stage companies had to

say informed decisions on how it should evolve this year. The result

is that startups will now have the chance to secure mentorship

from young innovation leaders already enjoying success; creating a

network of generational peers all headed in the one direction.

It makes sense

There is a tangible team spirit underpinning the most efective

startup ecosystems today, characterised by a collective desire

to overcome the biggest problems facing humanity. Europe

epitomises this spirit; with the inspiring startups – and young

innovation leaders ready to mentor them – taking part in the

EUTOP50 this week, and featured inside this

edition, exemplars of a new age of collaboration.

Connections made this week will take Europe

a step closer to realising a truly sustainable

continent that ofers equal opportunity to all.

IN THIS ISSUE

TEAM

Editor’s word

Iain

Robertson

Editor

2 Welcome to Brussels

4 Harald Neidhardt, CEO/Curator

at futur/io, writes about

Moonshots for Europe

7 EUTOP50 2018 Programme

11

Europe’s Young Innovation

Leaders pass on insight

16 Participating startup profles

We accept no responsibility for any efects from errors or omissions.

All material is copyright and reproduction is not permitted without express permission. All rights reserved.

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Engagement | Editorial Carlotta De Toni

Design | Creative Blair Carrick

Partnerships | Publishing Susan Robertson

Digital | Video Chris Moar

Research | Editorial Ebba Engstrom

Strategy | Editorial Iain Robertson

Insight | Host Marc Buckley

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Impact Innovators is a

onepoint5media publication

Welcome

dmund Phelps, the US Nobel prize winner from 2006, recently claimed

that Europe has run out of ideas and sufers from joylessness in business.

The EUTOP50 initiative and the entrepreneurs pitching their innovative

ideas this week show that is clearly not the case.

So does the work of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology

(EIT) and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). KICs integrate

education, research and business to drive innovation and entrepreneurship

– until now more than 1,250 startups have been supported, contributing to

more than 600 new products and services.

In essence, KICs help to provide funding and support to commercialise

the best ideas, promote people that are ready to innovate and become

entrepreneurs and provide a breeding ground to realise Europe’s potential in

sectors such as energy, raw materials, climate, health, ICT and food (advanced

manufacturing and urban mobility upcoming).

How is a KIC doing that? KICs have a holistic approach and bring together

the right people, from industry to research to education. To integrate this so-

called Knowledge Triangle is at the heart of a KIC. For a startup this can mean,

for example, to fnd a frst customer amongst the industrial partners of a KIC,

or to gain access to investors through the KIC.

At EIT RawMaterials, the KIC and the world’s largest network in the raw

materials sector, startups play an important role when it comes to new ideas

from adjacent industries or on challenges that have not been solved by

established businesses.

Here are two examples:

1 A start-up that has developed an entirely new algorithm that will allow

maintaining mining machines in a much more time and cost efcient

manner than ever before. This new approach, which had not been applied in

the mining sector yet, can have a strong impact on the competitiveness of

European world-market leaders in the feld – many of them being part of EIT

RawMaterials today.

A diferent innovative solution is ofered by a startup in the

Circular Economy. Collection boxes in drugstore chains ofer a voucher

in exchange for e-waste that can be used either directly in the shop or later

online. This decentralised solution is tackling the identifcation and collection

parts of the value chain, which are much less developed and efcient than

the steps related to the actual recycling of e-waste.

By supporting the EUTOP50 initiative, EIT RawMaterials would like to

make an important contribution to the innovativeness of Europe. Our focus

is on the people, which is you, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Dr Andreas Klossek

Chief Operations Ofcer,

Managing Director,

EIT Raw Materials

Welcome

t is no secret that science, research and talented

people are at the core of the solutions badly needed

to solve major challenges. However, these drivers of

innovation are far from being fully exploited in Europe.

A joint Europe-wide efort from the leading innovation

fnancing and support organisations, is key to turning

our great knowledge base and substantial investment

in science and research, into breakthrough technologies

with a global reach. With new developments in

blockchain, artifcial intelligence, high performance

computing, quantum technology, Big Data, IoT and

5/6 G, Europe has the opportunity to catch-up with the

leading platforms in the US and China. But the time

window is narrow, and action is urgently required.

There are many examples of successfully operating

innovation actors and eco-systems at the local and

regional level. However, the potential gains from

connecting innovation actors from across Europe are

not fully realised. A closer cooperation between the

best would allow for better leverage in exploiting

technology opportunities from science, research labs

and universities, through creating an enhanced and

more efcient EU-wide innovation system.

As the leading innovation platform in the

environment of the European institutions,

Knowledge4Innovation is making an urgent call

to establish a group of leading innovation actors

– technical universities and research institutions,

venture capital and private equity investors, angel and

alternative investors, Corporate Venture organisations

(CVC), Family ofces and incubators/accelerators. In

order to jointly advance the innovation agenda on a

pan-European level we need to ensure that our excellent

knowledge base is put to work and enable talented

young innovators and entrepreneurs that can help

Europe to stay globally competitive.

ow in its second year, the EUTOP50 Founders

and Tech Festival invites not only startups

and scale ups, but also R&D innovators from

European (Horizon2020) and national research

programmes, and university technology developers

from across Europe to promote their innovations. As

a particular highlight, we are launching a mentorship

programme for the winners of the EUtop50 competition.

This unique programme is run by carefully selected

Young Innovation Leaders who are award-winning

entrepreneurs that have launched their startups at a

young age, and now run successful companies having

brought their disruptive innovation to international

market. The winning startups get to beneft from the

passion and wide experience of these Young Innovation

Leaders in a six month personalised mentorship

programme to help them overcome their current

challenges and ensuring innovation across Europe.

Dr Roland Strauss

Managing Director,

Knowledge 4 Innovation,

Founder,

EUTOP50

Karolina Stawinska

Co-founder & head of talent,

Glowfy

Welcome

Moonshots

for Europe

For the past decades, Europe has been

a leader in innovation, deep tech and many

cross-border research projects, supported

by centres of academic excellence and a

vibrant start-up culture

By Harald Neidhardt, CEO & Curator, Futur/io Institute

I

strongly believe that Europe is

underselling its achievements, deserves

more credit for ground-breaking research

and must actively create a third way to be

an active part of shaping our future society

for the generations to come.

Europe is home to inventions like the

MP3 music format; the WWW, created at

CERN; Graphene, the ground-breaking

next material for faster chips and nano-

tech functionality unseen before; CRISPR/

Cas9, the gene editing tool with roots in

Spain, The Netherlands and Austria; artifcial

intelligence breakthroughs including

AlphaGo by the team at DeepMind, London

– now owned by Google – that outsmarted

the best Go player; Green-Tech and Fin-

Tech pioneers; Nobel laureates and

ambitious young high potentials

that start to clean the ocean before

they turn 20.

Yet, on a global scale, there is

much room to grow in recognition

of the pioneers. Through

fnancing to scale, by

educating a new

leadership of

generation Z, and

by promoting

visionary leaders

shaping a

new narrative, to help us co-create a new

Europe: a third way forward, in between

‘Make-America-great-again’ and a Chinese

superpower with a 300-year plan: We need

Moonshots for Europe.

We all experience the urgency of

challenges we are facing today – from

climate change to politics, from exponential

technologies to ethics in AI. The incoming

Anthropocene is clawing into our daily

lives and already overtaking our real-time

newsfeeds. It seems hard to switch of the

noise of man-made bad news to fnd the

signals of hope and lights at the end of a

tunnel of narrow-mindedness to the left

and far–right. But look beyond the surface

and you will fnd it: the good news, the

progress and the opportunities that

are left to bring actionable steps to

create a better tomorrow.

On a few golden October days

– just a few weeks ago – about

100 leaders representing corporate

innovation, academia, politics,

culture, research and start-

ups convened at H-Farm,

the Medici House of the

21st century, just outside

Venice, Italy. During the

Futur/io CxO executive

programme, a small spark

was created to cross-pollinate European

ideals, to value our open society, co-create

Moonshots for Europe and enjoy the

hospitality of a place ft for digital

pioneers, embedded in tradition and

beautiful countryside.

We learned, that we can think bigger,

bolder and positively about the future. We

learned how we can collaborate with diverse

backgrounds, beneft from diversity, co-create

a framework to apply moonshot thinking. We

discovered a way to carry home a fame of

appreciation and almost utopian excitement

to our teams, cities, countries or better

yet, our corner of an amazing European

continent. We appreciated that a small group

Harald Neidhardt by Dan Taylor

can make a diference and light a spark.

Kennedy declared a Moonshot by setting

an unlikely, bold and audacious goal – “not

because it is easy but because it is hard”

– and a vision became a reality to unite

powers and intellect for a giant step for

mankind. In Barcelona, Telefónica Alpha

opened the frst European moonshot lab to

tackle those big audacious goals.

Moonshots for Europe demand a

leadership suited to the transformations that

will defne the decades ahead; anticipation

of breakthrough technologies; benefts that

are designed for wider society, and for the

environment; and a clear purpose for people

– not a focus merely on consumers and

target groups, but in creating empowered

citizens. We have a lot of the right people

and ideas in Europe that we can connect

and inspire, to build a common house that

creates a bolder vision for a community of

values and progress, characterised by a new

defnition of what a post-growth economy

and open society looks like.

Moonshots for Europe will not be easy.

There is doubt, there is ambiguity, there

is indiference and there are voices that

steer towards the known, the past and the

rejection of diversity.

“Europe is a thought that needs to become

a feeling,” declared Bono shortly before

the opening of the recent concert by U2 in

Berlin. They waved a big European fag to be

thought-provoking, edgy or as a symbol of

hope. But waving a fag does not make Europe

a love-brand … unfortunately, sometime

mid-concert, Bono lost his voice. Any efort

though, to help us support a cultural narrative,

a feeling or a common narrative, can help

make it easier for people to understand and

value the benefts of Europe.

Let us be a voice, take action, and

generate hope, for a fourishing part of the

planet that shares common values, remains

passionately curious and strives to enjoy

growth responsibly, while respecting our

place on this blue marble.

futur.io

12:00 -

14:00

OPENING AND NETWORKING LUNCH

Welcome

Ivana Maletic, MEP, Chair K4I Forum

Introduction

Roland Strauss, Co-founder and Managing Director K4I

Karolina Stawinska, Co-founder & Head of Talent, Glowfy

Speakers

Jean-David Malo, Director DG R&I, European Commission

Dr Andreas Klossek, Chief Operations Ofcer, Managing Director,

EIT Raw Materials

Dr Clara Neppel, Senior Director, IEEE European Business Operations,

Young Innovation Leaders

European Parliament

13:00 -

17:30

1:1 MEETINGS

European Parliament

14:00 -

15:30

TECH TALKS WITH YOUNG INNOVATION LEADERS

Pitch Session 1: EIT Raw Materials

Moderator

Monica Zochowska, CEO & Co-founder, Phenicoptere Sp. Z o.o.

Keynote

Dr Andreas Klossek, Chief Operations Ofcer, Managing Director, EIT Raw Materials

Corporate View

Thomas Goergen, Head of Alliance Management Covestro

Startups pitches

ALDStone - United Kingdom

Laska Energy - Turkey

Pharem – Sweden

Vertoro - Netherlands

Young Innovation Leaders

Irene-Marie Seelig, Founder Amadou Leather

Monika Zochowska, CEO Phenicoptere

Q&A with Experts and Jury Members

European Parliament

Programme 2018

Monday, 26 November 2018

Time

Venue

EUTOP50 Founders and Tech Festival 26-27 November 2018, Brussels

Programme 2018

Monday, 26 November 2018

Time

Session Title

Venue

16:00 -

17:30

INVESTORS AND INNOVATION FINANCING FORUM

Moderator

Ronald Kleverlaan, Director European Centre for

Alternative Finance at Utrecht University & Senior Partner CrowdfundingHub

Speakers:

Anna Thomlinson, Managing Director, Start it @KBC

Marie-Elisabeth Rusling, CEO, Business Angels Europe (BAE)

Agnieszka Stasiakowska (Innovation Financing for SMEs), Senior Project Adviser at EASME

Nassima Ferahtia (EIC Accelerator and Blended fnance), DG RTD

Francisco Velazquez de Cuellar, President Axon Partners Group

Young Innovation Leaders (tbc)

European Parliament

08:00 -

09:00

NETWORKING BREAKFAST

European Parliament

08:00 -

17:30

1:1 MEETINGS

European Parliament

09:00 -

10:30

TECHTALKS WITH YOUNG INNOVATION LEADERS

Pitch Session 2: Health

Startups pitches

Babyndex - Hungary

Nuada - Portugal

OneRNA - Denmark

Sibreax - Switzerland

VideoOculograph - Russia (will pitch virtually)

Rx-Biologicals - Netherlands

Young Innovation Leaders

Michal Prywata, Founder, Bionik Laboratories & Skypod

Kamil Adamczyk, Founder, Cardio Technology

Jakub Zielinski, Managing Partner, Nextweb Holdings

Q&A with Experts and Jury Members

European Parliament

11:00 -

12:30

TECHTALKS WITH YOUNG INNOVATION LEADERS

Pitch Session 3: Environmental Sustainability

Startups pitching

Dexter - The Netherlands

Drone Hopper - Spain

Bioseco - Poland

Shayp - Belgium

Ecomate - Italy

Young Innovation Leaders

Daniel Horak, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, CONDA AG

Tom Charman, Co-founder & CEO, KOMPAS

Q&A with Experts and Jury Members

European Parliament

Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Time

Session Title

Venue

Programme 2018

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