Ignite Awards Celebrate Our Collaboration Heroes!

The 4th annual Ignite Award event went digital for the first time ever and focused on the speed, sustainability of collaborations that began in 2020. 

Despite the numerous challenges for companies of all sizes this year, there were still a lot of positives to come out of 2020 including a huge jump in the number of collaborations that Ignite helped facilitate. Since 2017, Ignite matchmaking meetings have initiated 230 commercial collaborations. This is more in 2020 than in the previous three years combined!

There were a number of new awards for this year including the sustainability heroes award which celebrated a collaboration that aims to tackle today’s sustainability challenges head on. The award was given to Alfa Laval and Bright Day Graphene for their exploratory work that will potentially reduce energy wastage. 

Upon winning the award Malin Alpsten, CEO of Bright Day Graphene said it was an exciting project.

“It’s a great opportunity as we want to have customers with us so we can develop the right product for them.”

Other new awards included the Rapid Rollout Award that went to Novartis for the speed of their collaboration and the Global Collaborator to BRF for their work with a Swedish startup from Brazil. Awards were also presented to both a public and private sector company that went from first meeting to a collaboration the fastest. These went to Rinkeby-Kista stadsdelsförvaltning – Stockholms stad and Toyota Material Handling Europe. IBM and Sveriges Allmännytta, Digitaliseringsinitiativet also won awards for their engagement with startups. 

Four awards were also given to startups, corporates and public sector organizations that started the most collaborations in the private and public sector during 2020. These awards went to ABB Synerleap, Ekkono, Parlametric and Uppsala Municipality.

Annika Remaeus, Head of the Business and Development Unit at Uppsala kommun said they were proud to receive the award. 

“Innovation and collaboration with startups is now a top priority at Uppsala kommun, both to address current and future challenges and that is thanks to Ignite.” 

As a bonus gift for the greater good Ignite also announced their support for Flowcup. This organisation provides women with menstrual cups who could not otherwise afford them. These products are significantly more sustainable than usual sanitary products.

The evening also featured interesting presentations including a case study from Coor and Spotscale and Tomas Blomquist’s research on how Ignite can create value.

Full List of this Year’s Ignite Awards

Ignite Startup Hack (Public Sector): Rinkeby-Kista stadsdelsförvaltning – Stockholms stad

Ignite Startup Hack (Private Sector): Toyota Material Handling Europe

Ignite Startup Engagement (Public Sector): Digitaliseringsinitiativet, Sveriges Allmännytta

Ignite Startup Engagement (Private Sector): IBM

Ignite Master of Startups (Public Sector): Uppsala kommun

Ignite Master of Startups (Private Sector): ABB SynerLeap

Ignite Master of B2B Collaboration (Public Sector): Parlametric

Ignite Master of B2B Collaboration (Private Sector): Ekkono Solutions

Ignite Rapid Rollout: Novartis

Ignite Sustainability Heroes: Alfa Laval & Bright Day Graphene AB

Ignite Global Collaborator: BRF   

Watch the full ceremony here