Applications for the the Europioneers Awards, a competition to reward the best European Web Entrepreneurs, start today! Organized by the StartUp Europe initiative (from the European Commission) together with Deloitte, European Young Innovators Forum and HUB Institute, this second edition aims at bringing visibility, raise awareness and inspire the whole European tech ecosystem.
Applicants should be based in one of the 27 EU member states and at least 50% of founders should be citizens or permanent residents of the EU member states. Entrepreneurs who are less than 30 years old can apply to the Youth award. Two new awards were created for this edition : the “Gazelle award”, for companies with an average yearly growth of 20% over a period of 3 years – in revenue of employees – not to be mistaken with the “Female Web Entrepreneur of the Year” for companies with at least 50% of female founders.
What’s in it for the winners? The aim of this competition is to give entrepreneurs a prestigious award coming from a major institution, giving them visibility in the European digital ecosystem. Since the public is voting, the recognition also comes from the civil society. Ultimately, the vision of the event is to “make our children want to become entrepreneurs superstars in the future, not football superstars” says Isidro Laso, head of Startup Europe. Over 1 200 nominations and 5600 votes involving 27 European countries have been registered for the first 2013 edition.
The launch of the 2014 edition is going to be announced at the NEXT Berlin Closing conference. Startups can apply here starting from today until June the 30th. The public is going to vote during the summer until the 5 finalists are announced on September the 24th at the Unconvention in Brussels. The award ceremony is going to take place at the Summit in Dublin on November the 3rd.
Last year, Alexander Ljung & Eric Wahlforss of Soundcloud, won European Entrepreneurs of the year award, and Jon Reynolds of SwiftKey were awarded Young Entrepreneur of the year.