![](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/europelitup-e1427462133676.jpg?w=738\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A new European Commission funded startup accelerator,\u00a0Data Pitch<\/a>, is\u00a0being launched today with the aim of\u00a0connecting established businesses and organisations with lots of data with startups who might be able to help them unlock the value of the info they hold and thereby\u00a0tackle industrial and societal challenges.<\/p>\n The EC says it\u2019s\u00a0committing\u00a0\u20ac7.1 million into \u201cdata driven innovation\u201d over the next three years, with\u00a0\u20ac4.8M going\u00a0directly to fund startups and SMEs via this \u201cstartup-corporate collaboration\u201d Data Pitch program.<\/p>\n Data Pitch will provide up to 50 European\u00a0startups and SMEs with\u00a0up to \u20ac100,000 in equity free funding, it said today, as well as\u00a0mentoring, investment opportunities, and access to data from established businesses and the public sector \u2014 with each\u00a0program running for six months.<\/p>\n A\u00a0spokeswoman told us that\u00a0Data Pitch will\u00a0operate across Europe, with the aim being to accelerate\u00a0between two to\u00a0three cohorts per year. Startups will be able to apply for a place from\u00a0July 1, 2017, with s<\/span><\/span>uccessful teams\u00a0selected in October and November, and the first cohort joining the program in\u00a0December.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ambition is to create an innovation ecosystem for Europe, where larger organisations work closely with agile startups to innovate and learn from each other, using \u00a0data as an enabler to solve problems,\u201d the EC said in a statement.<\/p>\n The funding for the initiative is\u00a0coming from\u00a0the EU\u2019s Horizon 2020 program<\/a>. And the\u00a0three-year data-focused accelerator project will be delivered by The University of Southampton, the<\/a> Open Data Institute, Portuguese accelerator organization\u00a0<\/a>Beta-i and French data marketplace platform<\/a> Dawex<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re getting a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu that\u2019s because the EC funded a similar project in 2014, called the Open Data Incubator Europe (Odine<\/a>) \u2014 also providing the same level of funding to startups to do creative and innovative things with data. That three year project led to 57 successful projects generating \u20ac16M in sales and investment and creating 268 jobs, according to the EC.<\/p>\n In terms of particular areas of interest for the new data accelerator, the spokeswoman said the program\u00a0has an \u201copen brief\u201d and will be led by \u201cthe datasets available from data providers\u201d, although it does also intend to structure this into a set of sector-specific tracks and challenges \u2014 identified in discussions with industry leaders and experts over coming weeks.<\/p>\n Among the areas and challenges it\u2019s\u00a0going to consider are:<\/p>\n Data-driven hackathons (aka \u2018datathons\u2019) will be used to define challenges, with the accelerator planning to partner with\u00a0established hackathons across Europe \u2014 such as Pixels Camp<\/a>, Angelhack<\/a>, Hack HPI<\/a> and The Port Hackathon in Cern<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 as well as\u00a0taking crowdsourced suggestions to feed into these idea sourcing events, the first of which\u00a0will kick off this spring.<\/p>\n To give you an idea of the kinds of projects Data Pitch might\u00a0fund, the spokeswoman said it\u2019s drawing on the\u00a0Open Data Challenge Series<\/a> as its model\u00a0\u2014 giving an example from that program where\u00a0applicants for a\u00a0Crime and Justice track were asked to submit products and services using open data that\u00a0would\u00a0increase community involvement with the criminal justice system;\u00a0create further evidence for what are effective interventions for rehabilitation; and\u00a0address the rise in personal crime.<\/p>\n The winner in that instance, Check That Bike!<\/a>, is a free online service that lets\u00a0people check whether a second-hand bike they want to buy has been previously stolen \u2014 with the service tapping into (open)\u00a0databases of\u00a0stolen bike details (such as police data, national and local registers, manufacturers, insurers); and also the Bing search engine to identify crime hot spots. The team apparently also makes use of Freedom of Information requests to try to get more police forces to open data on bike unique frame numbers that have been registered as stolen.<\/p>\n Commenting on Data Pitch in a statement, Elena Simperl, professor at the University of Southampton and project director for the accelerator program, said the aim is to create \u201ca European ecosystem for data-driven innovation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the digital age, every organisation, public or private, big or small, generates and owns substantial data assets. Not all them have the opportunity to use this data effectively. With Data Pitch we take an established open innovation model and apply it at European scale \u2014 we pair some of the most creative entrepreneurial minds in 28 countries and help them to solve data challenges that matter \u2014 for the economy, for the environment, for science, and for society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n Startups wanting to\u00a0apply for the Data Pitch program must \u2014<\/p>\n In the case of the UK, which last month initiated the two-year negotiation process of leaving the European Union, the spokeswoman confirmed UK startups can still apply to the program even though\u00a0Data Pitch is envisioned to run until the end of 2019 (so after the exit process should have concluded).<\/p>\n \u201cThe UK government has re-assured organisations<\/a> that have been awarded EU funds before March 2019 \u2014 which will be the case with all startups in Data Pitch \u2014 that they will be supported financially through national funds,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n Featured Image: Anton Balazh<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a> (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/europelitup-e1427462133676.jpg?w=680\")
A new European Commission funded startup accelerator, Data Pitch, is being launched today with the aim of connecting established businesses and organisations with lots of data with startups who might be able to help them unlock the value of the info they hold and thereby tackle industrial and societal challenges. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}