Entrepreneurship Award

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARD

The Entrepreneurship workshop provides the ability for small innovative companies to pitch their ideas for the next big thing in robotics to a panel of technology investment experts. Entrants stand the chance to gain valuable skills in how to pitch an investment idea together with the potential to gain interest in their company from the investment community.

Calls

Call for participants: ERF Entrepreneurship Award 2022 - extended application deadline 19th April 2022 9 May 2022

We invite all entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs in the robotics field to join the competition for the prestigious ERF Entrepreneurship Award.

The euRobotics Entrepreneurship Award is given out each year at the European Robotics Forum (ERF) to the most promising robotic start-up as judged by a jury of robotic entrepreneurship pioneers and experts.

Entrants to the competition stand the chance to gain interest in their company from the robotics and investment community. The 2022 edition of the Entrepreneurship Award will take place as part of the European Robotics Forum 2021, 28th – 30th June 2022: https://erf2022.eu/.

Benefits from participation

Five participants will be selected as Finalists and have ERF attendance paid for one person. The Finalists will pitch in the open Entrepreneurship Award workshop along with a robotic entrepreneurship role model and will receive a Finalists diploma and recognition in ERF and euRobotics social media.

For the 1^st placed participant a cash price of € 2.500 is awarded.

All qualified entrants will receive feedback on their pitch and project from the screening committee and an offer of a further 5 hours of counselling from European level robotic entrepreneurship experts.

The Entrepreneurship Award winner will additionally receive extended coverage on ERF social media and recognition in ERF public promotion materials and in a press release and an ERF Entrepreneurship Award winner diploma.

Sponsorship

This event is sponsored by euRobotics aisbl, Odense Robotics, Fundingbox the WeldGalaxy Programme. Announcements of more sponsors are expected.

Time of workshop

The Finalists workshop is planned to take place on 29th June, 11:40 – 13:00 and will be an open event to all registered attendees of the European Robotics Forum.

Approach

The award process is initiated with a round of private pitching and discussion sessions at which the 20 best entrants are invited to individually pitch their ideas to a panel of expert robotic entrepreneurship coaches.

These sessions will be scheduled as online meetings ahead of ERF during mid-May 2022 and will involve each selected entrant pitching in a 10-minute slot.

The online sessions will result in five entrepreneurs going forward to the ERF Entrepreneurship Award workshop – the five finalists will do a public pitch in front of a jury of robotics entrepreneurship role models and experts. This jury will then consider the presentations and declare a winner of the Entrepreneurship Award during ERF.

The number of entrants will be restricted to a maximum of 20. The organizers team supported by some of the coaches will select the 20 most promising or innovative ideas based on the application.

Only one person per finalist will be subsidized to join the ERF event. The support is given as a flat rate contribution to travel and accommodation of € 500 per finalist and as one ticket to ERF including the ERF banquet.

In order to address the confidentiality issue, it is suggested that presentations be kept to information you are happy to be in the public domain.

If there is any information that you feel is essential to your presentation, but you do not want to be fully public then this can be discussed with the coaching committee during the first sessions, but no NDA’s will be signed by the coaches.

Coaching committee, jury and role models

Qualified entrants will be followed by a team of expert coaches, that are also open for follow up counselling after ERF. Robotic entrepreneurship role models and experts will form the jury and could give specific input and assistance in the further development of your investment pitch and your company.

Organizers

Troels Oliver Vilms Pedersen, Danish Technological Institute, tovp@teknologisk.dk

Jon Agirre Ibarbia, Tecnalia, jon.agirre@tecnalia.com

Participants

How can participants contribute to, and prepare for, the workshop?

The participants are expected to have already developed an idea for a product or service and done some background work in researching the marketplace in which it could be exploited. Entries can be both individuals who have not yet established a company or teams with established companies and proof-of-technology, but without sales and turnover yet.

Judging parameters

Entrants will be coached and judged based on these parameters:

* Market position

* Product technology

* Scalability

* Team

* Roadmap

Participating and coaching

Interested participants must submit an application as an email with the following content:

1: Contact details (Name, company/affiliation, email, phone number – you must include ALL these informations)

2: Year of establishment of the company/initiation of the project

3: A presentation/your current pitch as attachment in .pptx or similar format