Commissioners Navracsics at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Innovation Forum in Budapest

Commissioner Tibor Navracsics, responsible for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, is today attending INNOVEIT 2017, a two-day forum organised annually for Europe’s leading innovators associated with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) in Budapest. He will participate in a panel on shaping innovation in Europe before attending the EIT Awards ceremony where he will present the EIT Innovators Award – one of three prizes to be handed out on the day that recognise successful young entrepreneurs and innovators who have graduated from an EIT-labelled Master’s programme or benefitted from business support through the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). The other awards are the EIT CHANGE Award and the EIT Venture Award. In addition, the audience will this year for the first time have the opportunity to award its own prize to one of the young innovators, the EIT Audience Award. The EIT’s KICs create networks of businesses, educators, and research institutes that offer innovators financial support, legal advice, training and coaching, or office space. The innovations represented at the awards include coffee waste becoming sustainable ink, a plasma patch that kills drug-resistant bacteria in chronic wounds, a new blood test for early cancer diagnosis, old wooden furniture fuelling future cars, and technology providing high-speed internet connectivity during a flight. A web stream of the nominees showcasing their work (17.00-18.00 CET) can be followed here, and the names of the winners will be available here as of Tuesday morning. More information on the EIT is available in this factsheet.