Some 380 products, 120 digital deep tech startups, 1500 master school alumni with skills to both innovate and do business and 180 industry-related PhD theses: the harvest of EIT Digital, based on the Eindhoven High Tech Campus, is impressive. And the team led by CEO Willem Jonker is not finished yet. This week, the 2020 programme has been announced, with another opportunity for European people and organisations to link their innovative talents to entrepreneurship.
Read also: Willem Jonker: European talents needed in the competition with China and US.
Applications must be submitted before 3 May. Companies, educational and research institutions and knowledge organisations that intend to provide a startup or a digital product or an entrepreneurial digital education programme can then take this up in a European partnership.
The EIT Digital Strategic Innovation Agenda 2020-2022 will be the guideline for the proposals. It identified five main strategic areas in which applications should fit: Digital Tech, Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Wellbeing and Digital Finance. According to Jonker, digital deep tech affects all aspects of our economy. “For Europe to be strong in the digital world, it must capitalise on its strengths in innovation and entrepreneurship by creating value from the best European research results and building the next generation of global players in the digital industry.”
The EIT Digital Innovation Factory supports pan-European entrepreneurial teams that want to launch new Tech startups and products. With the pre-incubation support, partners are included in the EIT Digital ecosystem and receive co-investment to develop their technology, register customers and attract investors.
The EIT Digital Entrepreneurship Academy provides educational support for the development and deployment of programmes and courses with business-oriented components. “Our partners can be part of our European ecosystem of European higher education institutions and co-invest with EIT Digital in entrepreneurial education programmes. They will receive both financial and educational support.”
The selection of proposals is planned for the end of June 2019. The selected activities could then start on 1 January 2020. More information on the EIT Digital 2020 programme is available here.
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