Jumpstarter, EIT Health Cross-KIC initiative, wins European Association Award

Helping start-ups in cooperation with EIT RawMaterials and EIT Food

Jumpstarter, a competition and training programme for start-ups run cooperatively by EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials and EIT Food, won the Best Association Training Initiative category in the European Association Awards, presented during a ceremony in Brussels on 28 March 2019.

The European Association Awards celebrate the vital work that the European Associations do on behalf of their members.

Jumpstarter kicked off last year as the the Joint Business Ideas Competition, a unique cross-industrial incubation programme created by EIT Health, EIT RawMaterials and EIT Food. Jumpstarter is one of EIT Health’s Cross-KIC programmes, managed by the EIT Health Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS).

Dóra Marosvölgyi, a project manager with RIS, is shown above with the European Association Award that Jumpstarter received.

Six months of training and a final pitch

More than 200 teams applied in 2018 for the Jumpstarter programme, which is designed to create a sustainable impact in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe by boosting innovation and entrepreneurship to revolutionise the EU market. Teams learn basic entrepreneurial skills, gain an understanding of market segmentation, develop value propositions, and work on leveraging their competitive advantage.

Following six months of training and mentoring, chosen teams pitched their ideas to an international expert jury at the Joint Grand Final in November. Future plans for Jumpstarter include incorporating more EIT KICs, such as EIT InnoEnergy in 2019, and possibly the newly established KICs of EIT Manufacturing and EIT Urban Mobility.

Along with Jumpstarter programme, another EIT Health activity was also nominated for a European Association Award: StarShip, a unique European year-long training programme created by EIT Health InnoStars.