EIT Digital is one of the 8 Innovation Communities of the EIT. The global goal is to drive innovation across Europe by integrating business, education and research organisations to collaborate and find solutions to pressing global challenges. EIT Digital focusses mostly on aspects related to a strong, digital Europe. 

As you might have noticed, EIT Digital has just launched two calls. One for technology-driven companies  and startups and one for educators. In this article we'll introduce both calls in more detail. And though the timing is the same, be aware that they are targetting completely different target groups. The submission deadline is 12 May 2021 (5pm CET), which is only 5 weeks from now. So act fast if you're interested. And not to forget, there is a Brokerage Event on 14 April 2021 (with pitches)

Focus areas

EIT Digital has defined 5 focus areas. 

• Digital Tech – is a more horizontal area, focusses on Networking, IoT, Data/AI, Cybersecurity & Privacy)
• Ditigal Cities – focussing on Mobility, City Analytics and Safety
• Digital Industry – full value chain is considered: Production, Logistics, Retail
• Digital Wellbeing – dealing with (sensor data for) Healthy Youth, Occupational Health and Independent Living
• Digital Finance - Retail Banking & Insurance, Asset Management & Corporate Financial Services.

If you're not active in (any of) these fields, you better start exploring the other communities of the EIT.

Call 1 - Innovation Factory (boostpack for entrepreneurs/startups)

EIT Digital wants to launch and boost digital deep tech ventures. Deep tech is defined as sophisticated technologies (often rooted in research) that are hard-to-reproduce and provide a competitive edge to the venture.

If you are currently working on a start-up, spin-off or spin-out (=lauch), or are ready to scale your activities (=boost), read on. In order to get selected, you'll have to 1/ demonstrate a strong (potential) impact of your solution/technology; 2/ have a strong core team; 3/ have gained already some (local) market traction or interest; and 4/ have sufficient capital to operate.

Your venture needs thus to be in the stage well-beyond the first idea. If you make it to the selection, EIT Digital will co-invest (up to 300 kEUR) in your plan/venture and is basically offering you a boostpack (through their ecosystem) to co-design and grow your venture with sufficient market validation in an internation context. The ecosystem contains 300+ partners in 18 EU locations, with connections to international talents and private investors & venture capital.

Interested? Check out the details on the call website. Don't forget to watch the recording of the info session of 2021-04-07 (soon available) and the Brokerage Event.

Call 2 - Entrepreneurial Academy (for educators/academics)

EIT digital runs 3 school programmes:

• a master school with 8 master programmes (2 years, 120 ECTS) in disruptive digital technologies, hosting yearly 800+ studentsat 18 leading universities in 9 EU countries. Everything is based on blended and distributed innovation & entrepreneurial education.
• a professional school, offering digital executive courses (short, high-quality, industry-relevant) on topics in the EIT Digital focus areas. Blended learning is their blueprint: in 2 to 4 day courses, online learning through MOOCs is alternated with live face-to-face classes and hands-on-experiences and case studey work.
• a summer school, during a 2 week intensive workshop, this year at 11 locations around Europe, master students, young professionals and PhD students can deep-dive in emerging digital technologies and learn how to turn technology into business.

For all three programmes EIT Digital is basically looking for strong partners for new content creation (to enrich their portfolio), for innovating in their teaching methods and tools, for co-organising events, programmes, classes and summer schools and for reuse of the current content through platforms owned by partners.

If you are a strong player in the education field, focussing on topics that are relevant to the EIT Digital focus areas, this call is your chance to partner up with a strong player in the EU Innovation and Entrepreneurial ecosystem. The cooperation commitments are foreseen to be 3 years, which allows for growth and pivoting during the cooperation.

Interested? Check out the details on the call website. Don't forget to watch the recording of the info session of 2021-04-07 (soon available) and the Brokerage Event.