EIT Jumpstarter names best newborn innovations of 2022

Over a hundred innovators travelled to Krakow, Poland, to join the EIT Jumpstarter Grand Final, organised by EIT Health in cooperation with other Knowledge and Innovation Communities. The most promising newborn start-ups from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe were awarded nearly €200K in total. 

The team from Porto – Thertact triumphed in the health category with their concept of a mobile neurorehabilitation system to help patients with locomotion impairment. 

On November 29, the sixth edition of EIT Jumpstarter, a pre-accelerator run by six communities of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), came to an end, summarising the programme with pitches from 42 finalists in seven different categories – health, food, raw materials, energy, urban mobility, manufacturing, and New European Bauhaus (focused on sustainable and inclusive living spaces). All teams came from regions where the pace of developing innovations is still moderate. Those include the Baltics, the CEE region, and Southern countries like Greece, Italy, Spain or Portugal, as well as Ukraine or Western Balkans.

“More than 750 innovators have joined the programme during the last six years, and there are several success stories, including further financing they received. While some of the alumni keep refining their business idea, over 45 have formalised companies and continue to expand,” says Dóra Marosvölgyi, the Director of the EIT Community’s Regional Strategic Innovation Projects.

Backing promising discoveries

The awarded Thertact works on developing a mobile neurorehabilitation system that merges the brain-machine interface, Virtual Reality (VR) and thermal and tactile feedback. “I can feel my feet cold, I can feel my feet warm” – this is feedback from the paraplegic customer after his first clinical session with Thertact at the hospital test in Portugal. The team tries to respond to the urgent need to scale neurorehabilitation care in Portugal and across Europe and cost-effectively support continuous post-stroke treatment.

Among the top healthcare innovations, the jury also recognised the Orgavalue team (Portugal), working on biotechnology for bioengineering fully transplantable human organs and Play.air (Poland), which develops digital speech therapy for children based on gamification.

Not only start-ups received awards during the Grand Final. The University of Warsaw was recognised as the Best RIS Hub, actively contributing to the work with young innovators. The University of Warsaw is EIT Health Partner and the EIT Food RIS Hub, operating within the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme.

“EIT Jumpstarter is not only about the cash prizes. It’s about turning the scientific ideas drafts into businesses which can fly and, foremostly, giving access to the largest innovation ecosystem in Europe. With its strong presence in Central, Eastern and Southern regions, including Western Balkans, EIT Health is well anchored to support local ecosystems development and include them for active collaboration opportunities in the European innovation ecosystem“, underlined Balazs Furjes, Managing Director of EIT Health InnoStars.

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The full list of the EIT Jumpstarter Grand Final 2022 winners

EIT Health

1st prize – Thertact (Portugal)

2nd prize – Orgavalue (Portugal)

3rd prize – Play.air (Poland)

EIT Food

1st prize – LiFi4Food (Spain)

2nd prize – Ribes Technologies (Poland)

3rd prize – Digital Bites (Greece)

EIT Raw Materials

1st prize – FarMine (Turkey)

2nd prize – EpoxCE (Spain)

3rd prize – Kodatek (Estonia)

EIT InnoEnergy

1st prize – Solar Container Marine (Green Marine) (Spain)

2nd prize – EFC Mag (Slovenia)

3rd prize – EV to go (Republic of North Macedonia)

EIT Manufacturing

1st prize – Quimsil (Spain)

2nd prize – Lume Label (Poland)

3rd prize – Fprint (Spain)

EIT Urban Mobility

1st prize – Bruntor (Latvia)

2nd prize – BeBeep (Montenegro)

3rd prize – Esguil (Spain)

New European Bauhaus

1st prize – Spektral Seismic Solutions (Slovenia)

2nd prize – KEEEN (Italy)

3rd prize – Hiriki (Spain)

Special Prizes

Best cross-thematic business idea – Green Kilometers, Bulgaria

Audience Award – MaskOFF, Poland

Best business idea from Western Balkan – FCL, Serbia

Best RIS Hub – University of Warsaw, Poland