IMBM’s President Professor Zvia Agur Named Finalist for EU Prize for Women Innovators 2016
Nine outstanding women entrepreneurs who have brought their breakthrough ideas to the market are entering the final stage of the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2016. The shortlist, which includes IMBM’s Founder and President, Professor Zvia Agur, was announced today by the European Commission. The contestants have all founded or co-founded successful companies based on their innovative ideas.
Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said, “While there can only be three Prize winners, the remarkable achievements of all the women who entered the contest deserve great recognition. They worked very hard, took risks, and may sometimes have faced setbacks, but they got back up again and persevered to fulfil their visions. This is the kind of spirit we need more of in Europe. These outstanding women are an inspiration to other researchers and entrepreneurs, female and male alike.”
The nine finalists are:
- Prof. Zvia Agur, founder of IMBM in Israel, a leading health company creating pioneering medical software technology for oncology personalisation.
- Dr. Sarah Bourke, co-founder of Skytek in Ireland, develops software for the International Space Station and received innovation awards from NASA.
- Dr Sarah Fredriksson, founder of Genovis in Sweden, whose innovative products are used by the global pharmaceutical industry for analysis of complex biological drugs.
- Dr. Claudia Gärtner, co-founder of Microfluidic ChipShop in Germany, makes portable analytical systems happen-–following the 40 year old vision of the Star Trek “Tricorder”.
- Prof. Pirkko Härkönen, co-founder of Hormos Medical in Finland, discovered a new hormonally active drug and created test systems for cancer drug development.
- Prof. Sirpa Jalkanen, co-founder of BioTie Therapies in Finland, discovered unique targets for drug development for harmful inflammations and cancer treatment.
- Prof. Sylviane Muller, co-founder of ImmuPharma in France, discovered a novel way to treat auto-immune diseases, currently evaluated in a clinical trial for Lupus.
- Dr. Kira Radinsky, co-founder and CTO of SalesPredict in Israel, pioneers inpredictive data mining algorithms that help businesses improve marketing and sales results and increase revenue.
- Dr. Susana Sargento, co-founder of Veniam in Portugal, turns vehicles into Wi-Fi hotspots and builds city-scale vehicular networks that collect terabytes of urban data.
The finalists were selected by a high-level jury consisting of independent experts from business, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and academia. 64 applications were submitted for the 2016 edition of the Prize from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon 2020, the EU’s funding programme for research and innovation. The three winners, who will receive cash prizes of €100,000, €50,000 and €30,000, will be announced in March 2016.
About the EU Prize for Women Innovators
First awarded in 2011 and 2014, the EU Prize for Women Innovators was created to to raise public awareness of the need for more innovation and more women entrepreneurs. Although women are increasingly active in research, there are still too few who create innovative enterprises. This represents an untapped potential for Europe, which needs all its human resources to remain competitive and find solutions to the economic and societal challenges it is facing.