About the community 

EIT Digital is one of the 9 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. 

EIT Digital focuses firstly on accelerating the uptake of new promising technologies, secondly on training a new generation of entrepreneurs and lastly on supporting digital tech scale-ups. EIT Digital has 9 offices in the EU and one in Silicon Valley.

The focus lies on building digital innovations and new business in strategic focus areas:

• Digital Tech – is a more horizontal area, focusses on Networking, IoT, Data/AI, Cybersecurity & Privacy
• Digital Cities – focussing on Mobility, City Analytics and Safety, e.g. how digital solutions can enhance the mobility in the cites, make it a more convenient place to live,
• Digital Industry – use of digital technologies in physical production, the full value chain is considered: from Production over Logistics to Retail
• Digital Wellbeing – dealing with (sensor data for) Healthy Youth, Occupational Health and Independent Living, the focus is to shift from repair to prevent 
• Digital Finance – impact of the big (digital) transition on Retail Banking & Insurance, Asset Management & Corporate Financial Services.

Programmes

The stimulation of the uptake of new technologies is done through the innovation factory which invests in pan-European teams together that collaborate the permanent members of EIT Digital.

The eduction is dealt with through 3 different schools aiming to reach out to master and doctoral students and promising professionals.

The final cornerstone of EIT Digital is the financial and business support to digital tech scale-ups, through the EIT digital accelerator programme.

You can check the overview of the (open and past) calls and tenders to quickly grasp an idea of the possibilities.

Innovation Factory

With the Innovation Factory, 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.

Target group is those that are working on a start-up, spin-off or spin-out (=lauch), or are ready to scale their activities (=boost). In order to get selected, one has to 1/ demonstrate a strong (potential) impact of the 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.

The venture needs thus to be in the stage well-beyond the first idea. For those that make it to the selection, EIT Digital will co-invest in the plan/venture and is basically offering you a boostpack (through their ecosystem) to co-design and grow the venture with sufficient market validation in an international context. 

Academy

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.

Accelerator programme

The EIT Digital Accelerator is mostly embeded in the in slipsteam of the innovation factory. It focuses on international growth support for European digital tech scaleups. 

• Network: Whatever sector you are into, it's always access to the ecosystem that makes the difference. The EIT Digital team will assist you to get direct introductions, go-to market coaching, exclusive matchmaking events and they will welcome you in a network of 500+ corporate clients.
• Raise capital: The European team of business developers of EIT Digital and fundraising experts supports digital deep tech companies by raising venture capital (typically between €5M - €25M) and securing customers in European markets.
• Complementary: Additionally you'll get access to services like the EIC Fast Track programma, Access to talent, workspace and/or knowlegde. And, last but not least, international visibility.

How to get involved

Firstly there is the EIT Digital homepage for full details. If you are looking for more aggregated information, you might be better of with the information on the EIT communities page. You can also attend or watch InnoveEIT, the annual conference of the EIT, to get insights and testimonies on what the impact of EIT Digital is.

Make sure to keep an eye on the published calls, there are announced well beforehand.

You can contact your NCP for digital, nico.deblauwe@vlaio.be, if you have another question.