EU Education Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou will present the EIT's first entrepreneurship awards in Brussels Feb. 21, kick-starting the institute's efforts to promote entrepreneurship in the EU.
"We are investing in creating the entrepreneurs of tomorrow," the Commissioner said. The awards programme, created by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, will recognise three innovative start-ups in the fields of energy, climate and information technologies. The winners will be chosen by a panel of industry and university leaders, and announced after a day-long conference: "Start-Up! The European Entrepreneurship Summit."
Initiatives to promote entrepreneurship have become a showcase of an EU campaign to boost competitiveness and speed economic recovery. The Commission late last year proposed a big budget rise for the EIT, following its initial phase of development, to €2.8 billion over the EU's next seven-year plan – with a target of stimulating the birth of 600 start-up companies and providing training to 10,000 PhDs and 25,000 other students. At the same time, the Commission proposed boosting other support mechanisms for small companies, including opening an 'SME Window' for financing at the European Investment Bank.
The conference Feb. 21 is being held in cooperation with the Science|Business Innovation Board, a Belgian not-for-profit scientific association co-founded with business schools ESADE and INSEAD to improve the climate for innovation in Europe. The three EIT awards will be presented at an evening ceremony, along with four other entrepreneurship prizes organised by Science Business's Innovation board: the 4th annual Academic Enterprise Awards to recognise the best university spin-outs across Europe.
Besides the Commissioner, other confirmed guests will include:
- 21 entrepreneur-nominees for the various EIT and ACES awards. These include such prominent start-ups as German scientific-documents site Mendeley, Finnish mobile-'apps' developer Blaast, and Portuguese cell-therapist Cell2B. They will participate in a master class on communications in Brussels, and give three-minute "elevator pitches" about themselves to the conference and jury.
- EIT Chairman Alexander von Gabain, Vice Chairman Anders Flodström, Board member Daria Tataj, and Director José Manuel Leceta.
- Innovation Board representatives Alan Begg, Chief Technology Officer of Sweden's SKF; Robert Sorrell, Vice President for Public Partnerships of BP; Alfons Sauquet, Dean of ESADE Business School; and Edward Astle, Pro-Rector of Imperial College London; John Wood, Secretary-General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities; and Pat Cox, President of the European Movement and former European Parliament president.
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