IEEE N3XT® Star Selected At European Innovation Summit Week

Pictured: A group of 50 entrepreneurs attending the European Innovation Summit Week event in Brussels.

By Andreas Neumeier

Local economies across the world are stimulated by innovations in engineering, making the widespread proliferation of technology entrepreneurship a priority for many countries. In an effort to recognize the impact start-ups have made and the efforts they invest in fresh ideas and economic development, the IEEE N3XT® STARS program Stars selection occurs in collaboration with industry partners at large-scale technology startup competition events. The Stars program recognizes competitor startups across the globe whose engineering-driven innovations overlap with IEEE’s field of interest and align with the IEEE core purpose to foster technology, innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.

The latest IEEE N3XT Stars program was conducted at the Knowledge4Innovation European Innovation Summit Week. The event was held in Brussels from 27 – November to 1 December 2017, and was proudly supported by IEEE, the IEEE Standards Association, and IEEE Region 8 Action for Industry Initiative.

The Event

In the Hemicycle of the European Parliament, 50 companies were selected from a pool of several hundred to pitch their ventures to European leaders in business, finance and politics.  A wide range of start-ups covering many verticals such as education, environment, healthcare and frontier tech participated in the 5-day event.

Pictured: Clara Neppel addressing attendees at European Innovation Week.

2017 has been an important year for the future of innovation in Europe. This event provided an opportunity to reflect on how we can innovate more intelligently by making better use of available knowledge and resources. Conversations focused on concrete solutions addressing major challenges for which we need more innovations than ever.

Several of the companies at this event were candidates for the IEEE N3XT® Star program. A group of judges spoke to startups in various industries whose companies’ mission statements aligned with the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

The Winner

The IEEE Entrepreneurship Initiative is happy to announce that the IEEE N3XT® Star at European Innovation Week title was given to the following company last week in Brussels:

SOLHO:  SOLHO proposes an innovative and fully off-grid energy system called SPRHOUT (Solar PoweRed Horticultural Off-grid UniT) that, using solar power and thanks to a thermal energy storage system, fulfills the needs of greenhouse-based horticultural projects.

To learn more about the IEEE N3XT® Star program, and to check out past winners from entrepreneurship events across the globe, visit our page here!