Two Irish women entrepreneurs have been named as winners of the EU Prize for Women Innovators 2022.
Niamh Donnelly, co-founder and CRO of Akara Robotics, won in the category for Rising Innovators while Dr. Ciara Clancy, founder and CEO of Beats Medical, won in the Women Innovators category.
Innovators who have tackled everything from combating climate change to curing the most deadly diseases in the world are honoured in this competition.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Summit was held yesterday in Brussels, and the six overall winners in the two categories from Ireland, Spain, France, Bulgaria, and Portugal were announced.
Each of the three winners in the category for Women Innovators will receive a prize of €100,000, while each of the three winners in the category for Rising Innovators will receive €50,000.
Ireland has won in the category known as “Rising Innovator,” which honours promising emerging innovators under the age of 35, for the second year in a row.
The award was won the previous year by Ailbhe and Izzy Keane of Izzy Wheels, and a third of the finalists were Irish businesspeople.
The competition is sponsored by the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation and is run by the SMEs Executive Agency and European Innovation Council (EIC) (EISMEA).
The Horizon Europe National Support Network, led by Enterprise Ireland, aims to ensure as much participation from Ireland in this funding initiative as possible.
According to Joe Healy, interim divisional manager for research and innovation at Enterprise Ireland, the organisation continues to support and promote Irish women entrepreneurs in order to expand the talent pool of the nation while also assisting them in expanding their businesses and ultimately creating jobs.
“Overall, Ireland has enjoyed considerable success in EIC funding under the Horizon Europe programme with 15 Irish SMEs approved €86m in the last two years,” he added.