Leaders: Women Innovators in Manufacturing from EIT RIS eligible countries!

LEADERS: Women Innovators in Manufacturing from EIT RIS eligible countries

LEADERS is a competition designed to support and highlight the best women innovators from EIT RIS eligible countries (professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs) who are playing a leading role in developing solutions that address manufacturing-related challenges and that could have a strong environmental or societal impact. The EIT Manufacturing RIS LEADERS 2024 Call is now open for submissions, read more here.

LEADERS Competition 2023

The final event and award ceremony of the RIS LEADERS competition 2023 took place on 20 & 21 November 2023 in Brussels within the EIT Manufacturing Summit 2023, and had six highly innovative women professionals on stage and three winners!

During the festive award ceremony at the EIT Manufacturing Summit 2023, Konstantinos Georgoulias, Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) & EU Affairs Director, established that the RIS LEADERS have been instrumental in addressing the challenges faced by women in manufacturing.

“I have been lucky enough to listen to all these women who pitched their knowledge yesterday. That they can make a difference. Congratulating them for their willingness to make a mark for the future of the manufacturing space. It’s not always the most open space but today we want to give a prize to some of the women. To the rest – keep going! Keep making a difference,” said Caroline Viarouge, CEO, EIT Manufacturing.

LEADERS Competition 2022

The final round of the LEADERS competition 2022 took place on 17 November 2022 in Brussels within the EIT Manufacturing Summit Days 2022, and had six highly innovative women professionals on stage and three winners!

They have pitched their achievements to the audience and had three minutes pitch time as well as three minutes for questions and answers to convince the jury.

“I’m happy I could present my work to the international audience, and I’m honoured by the award. It motivates me to keep working hard and I’m sure it motivates other girls and women to try out the world of tech. The RoboTwin team is again one step closer to our goal – saving humans from doing unhealthy routine manual jobs in the age of automation. Many thanks to EIT Manufacturing for supporting projects like ours.” Said, MEGI MEJDRECHOVA, first prize winner of the LEADERS Competition 2022.

LEADERS Competition 2021

In the beginning of October 2021, 30 female innovators out of all received applications, were pre-selected and joined two online training sessions on business pitching led by CLC West-Business Creation Manager Gala Maturana, who is also a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coaching Federation. In the first training session, Gala gave the participants basic insights and helpful tips on pitching and shared her vast experience with them. In a second workshop, the pre-selected LEADERS applied their new knowledge and trained live pitching with the other candidates, receiving instant feedback.

“I see the participation in the LEADERS call as an opportunity to gain new skills and to get support in empowering women in the manufacturing area.”, says LEADERS participant Anet Rezek Jambrak, PhD, Professor at the University of Zagreb.

“We need the manufacturing sector to be more inclusive, and the best way to achieve this is by supporting women innovators to become the role models that the next generations of girls will be looking up to. We want to encourage having more women in higher positions for a more sustainable and more competitive manufacturing industry. Diversity and inclusion – this is the way to go“, says Gala Maturana, Business Creation Manager, EIT Manufacturing CLC West.