Today, 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas and it is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Existing urban systems need to adapt to a growing population in order to sustain and provide a healthy, smart and green environment, resulting in emerging markets and growing demand for all the related technologies.
URBAN TECH’s objective is to increase the competitiveness of European urban tech industries globally. Through the market launch of new or significantly improved products and services with higher value (accessible, eco-innovative, resource-efficient, and internationally scalable), the project aims at accelerating the competitive success of European SMEs.
URBAN TECH establishes long-term cooperation between SMEs and start-ups with big corporations, public sector authorities both on regional and state level and other innovation actors with a common vision of the urban future. To do that, the project is implementing a staged process for SME innovation validation and entrepreneurship support across local ecosystems relying on different phases.
The innovative challenges and the open call
The first phase, the exploration and identification of the challenges and needs across the 3 emerging industries, Health Tech, Smart City and Green tech, has been completed. 310 challenges have been identified by public and private companies, authorities and non-profit organizations from 13 EU countries and 36 different business sectors. The challenges including, among others, database and water solutions, digital marketplace and urban planning have been published in the Virtual Library of challenges.
Urban Tech launched its next phase on 22 June 2022 with an open call providing up to EUR 54 350 per SME or start-up in different funding stages. Start-ups and SMEs from partner countries across European Union and Associated Countries are asked to submit concepts for solutions that clearly address the collected challenges.
The best 320 proposals will be invited to hackathons to further elaborate their solutions with the help of the “Challenge Owner” and submit a full proposal with a detailed action plan. As a result of the selection process, 80 of the most promising projects will develop a minimum viable product and those who qualify to the next stages will be able to pilot the solutions and access the international market.
The deadline for applying to the acceleration programme is 28 September, 17:00 CEST.
The best 160 ranked applications out of the 320 selected ones will receive a Travel Voucher to attend the hackathons organised throughout November 2022. SMEs will have an opportunity to use other innovation services provided by the Technology Parks members of the project, such as incubation and testing facilities, coaching and mentoring services and more.
More information about the project and the open call is available on the URBAN TECH website.
Details
- Publication date
- 12 July 2022
- Author
- European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency