Sweden sweeps the board at the European IST awards
Swedish innovation was given a massive thumbs-up at the European Information Society Technologies Prize awards 1999 in Helsinki, where all three grand prizes went to Swedish companies. The ceremony, which jury chairman Sir Derek Roberts compared to the Nobel Prize awards, took place on 23 November in Finlandia Hall before the 3,500 delegates of the IST 99 conference. As the name of the third winner was drawn from the envelope, Sir Roberts assured the audience that there was only one Swedish member on the jury. The awards were presented by European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, speaker of the Finnish Parliament, Riita Uosukainen, and Sir Derek Roberts. The first grand prize winner selected was C Technologies for the C-Pen, a wireless data pen that reads, stores, processes and transfers printed text cordlessly to your PC. Collecting the gold trophy and the 200,000 euros prize money Christer Fahraeus said the IST award would prove important in furthering the ambitions of his company. Next up was Jakob Ehrensvard of Cypak, who have produced an interactive packaging system which monitors and evaluates the way patients take their prescriptions. Brandishing his trophy in the air he said: 'It's a big day. We are a very new company and this is a dream start for us.' Cypak became a legal entity just two months ago, and its staff comprise only three part-time members. Mr Ehrensvard revealed that the company were just about to begin negotiations with venture capitalists. 'Now instead of saying what can we do for you, we can say what can you do for us,' he said. The third Swedish company to cross the stage was Effnet for its PCI-card Effnet ROC (Router On a Card) that transforms any standard server to a multi-functional communications platform. Kavin Bjurel said the IST prize would enable them to expand outside Sweden: 'This reward will really help us establish ourselves in the European Community.' After the ceremony, which was broadcast live on the Finnish TV station MTV3, IST delegates were heard discussing whether there was anything special about the Swedish environment that allowed innovative companies such as these to flourish. In 1998 one of the Grand Prize winners, iD2 Technologies, was also Swedish. Mattias Wingstedt of Swedish company Idonex, one of the 20 companies nominated for this year's award, said: 'It has been established that Scandinavia has the lead in Europe in terms of Internet technologies and mobile communications so we have an advantage perhaps, but I do not think this is a national contest.' The European Information Society Technologies Prize looks for novel products with a high IT content and evident market potential. It is organised by the European Council of Applied Sciences and Engineering, EuroCase, and supported by the European Commission through the IST programme. EuroCase organisers noted that this year's entries were particularly high quality, and that participants were moving from pure invention to innovation, transforming research results into marketable products, exactly what the IST conference wishes to promote. The awards lend prestige to the winners, who all expressed delight at the increased market potential the award would bring. John Kamatakis of Greek company LaserLock International which won a grand prize at the 1998 awards said the IST prize has meant a lot to his business. It has increased their ability to attract venture capital, established the company name around Europe, and lead to increased profits. Most importantly, he said, the prize was instrumental in establishing a consortium with several partners to put forward a proposal to the IST programme of the European Commission for a data security system.