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Shaping a green and digital future: Announcing the 2021 winners of the European Social Inclusion Competition

8 December 2021

Seoana Sherry-Brennan

Home » News » Shaping a green and digital future: Announcing the 2021 winners of the European Social Inclusion Competition

Three social innovation projects have been awarded 50,000€ each for their ideas to help people and organisations adapt and thrive in a changing world.

Today, at an exciting virtual Awards Event, the European Commission announced the winners of the 2021 European Social Innovation Competition. The 2021 edition of the competition, ‘Skills for tomorrow’ was looking for scalable social innovations that will contribute to job creation, growth and European competitiveness by helping people, businesses and industries identify, develop and strengthen the skills that will power the European economy’s green and digital future.

The three winners were selected by an expert judging panel out of 565 applicants, which were submitted from 39 eligible countries (including 26 EU Member States).

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE 2021 ENTRANTS HERE

The 2021 winners

SkillLab – Netherlands – Christoph Bretgeld / Ulrich Scharf

SkillLab has developed a mobile solution that helps people to identify and express their skills. On the basis of a detailed skill-profile, individual pathways are shown by mapping skills to occupations and to training offerings that address skill-gaps.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SKILLLAB

Snowball Effect – Austria – Laure Frech Brouard / Yoon-Joo JEE

Snowball Effect is the first school supporting aspiring social entrepreneurs to replicate proven social enterprises in their region. Participants learn directly from the initial founders of successful social enterprises to replicate their concept.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SNOWBALL EFFECT

Zekki – What’s up? – Finland – Reija Paananen / Sakari Kainulainen

Zekki is a digital service matching young people and diverse support services based on the online wellbeing self-assessment quiz. It gives tools for young people to ponder their own well-being, future, preferences, tomorrow’s choices and own tracks. It also gives guidance and leads to appropriate support when needed.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ZEKKI

Hear from the winners

You know what you are doing, you know what everybody else is doing, but obviously it all depends on the judgment criteria. Did you get your message across? Is it clear? We are very used to overcomplicating things to a degree that nobody really understands what we are doing in the end. This is fantastic, this is wow!

SkillLab’s co-founder and director of strategy Christoph Bretgeld

This is awesome. It comes really at the right moment, after this year. Thank you, it’s going to change the way Snowball Effect will evolve in the year to come. We have so much on the table and this support will help us definitely reach our goal in a much more efficient way. It’s going to take an additional year just on raising awareness and making this a mainstream concept, so financial security is really, really appreciated and needed at this critical time.

Snowball Effect’s co-founders Laure Frech Brouard and Yoon-Joo Jee

I don’t know what to say! I thought that getting to the finals was already such a win. I think now we are able to do the English version of Zekki and to make a pilot at least in another region.

Zekki’s project manager Reija Paananen

The 2021 Impact Prize winner

As well as the three winners, the 2021 Impact Prize winner was also revealed to be MycoTEX, from The Netherlands. MycoTEX, which was a finalist in the 2020 competition – Reimagine Fashion, offers an award winning, all-in-one solution for fashion brands. They use an automated seamless production technology to create custom-fit products out of sustainable, vegan textiles made from mycelium (mushroom roots).

This groundbreaking manufacturing method solves major issues in the fashion industry: It reduces cost, waste, and labour-intensity of cut and sew operations; replaces plastics and leathers with compostable materials and improves the comfort and fit of fashion products.

A model wearing a MycoTEX top on the catwalk

This is so incredible! It has really been a hard year and it feels like now things are moving in the right direction for us… I was not thinking that this could happen… You try so much and so hard, and there are only just a few that succeed.

MycoTEX company founder Aniela Hoitink

People’s Choice Award Winner

This year, for the first time, the audience were given the chance to have their say in the awards, with a special People’s Choice Awards. Participants were given the opportunity to vote for their favourite finalist idea, and after a close poll, the winner was declared to be… Happaning!

What is Happaning?

Like Google street view, but with video; Happaning lets you navigate events from any perspective, at any time and from anywhere in one immersive live/on-demand experience. The patented ViiVid® (multi-Vantage Video) technology synchronises multiple video feeds with a real-time P2P blockchain-style codec. This allows ViiVid® to verify the time and place of a recording, detect post production edits and then uses cutting-edge augmented reality (AR), immersing viewers into the narrative. ViiVids® will contribute to a world where consumer can make informed decisions about what they are seeing, while appreciating diverse perspectives.

Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. That is the idea behind Happaning,” the team said. “Collaboration runs through everything we do, in terms of the way we work and what we create. It doesn’t matter what your skill set is, there is probably going to be a space for you in Happaning. We can make magic happen when we tell collaborative stories.