Ireland’s leading entrepreneurs and companies are being invited to enter the annual Irish Times Innovation Awards.
The awards, now in their 12th year, are designed to recognise and reward disruptors from across the island and from every sector of business, from start-ups led by enterprising individuals to multinationals and every scale of organisation in between.
In January, Galway-based medtech company HidraMed Solutions won the Irish Times Innovation of the Year award for 2020 for developing a novel dressing system aimed at those suffering from the incurable skin disease hidradenitis suppurativa.
Category winners were Lowden Guitars, VorTech Water Solutions, Ward Automation, and Ecomm Merchant Solutions.
The overall winner this year will receive a high-profile communications package worth more than €100,000, plus a scholarship for short courses in executive development in the UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business.
All of the finalists will also be profiled in The Irish Times, both in print and online.
Five categories
The awards are split into five categories: sustainability (sponsored by Skillnet Ireland); IT and Fintech (sponsored by Mason Hayes & Curran); life sciences and healthcare (sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland); manufacturing and design (sponsored by Enterprise Ireland); and new frontiers (covering any innovations that do not fall into the other categories), sponsored by UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.
The awards ceremony will be hosted in the first quarter of next year, with the winners to be selected by a judging panel chaired by leading entrepreneur and Irish Times columnist Chris Horn.
The closing date for entries is November 22nd at 5pm. Entry is free. More information at irishtimes.com/innovationawards.
