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