Data Pitch, the data accelerator for European startups addressing social issues

Smart cities, health and welfare, food and agriculture ... The European Commission has approved the launch of Data Pitch, an innovation accelerator in the field of data that aims to bring companies and entrepreneurs together in order to channel challenges and strategies by sharing data and addressing social problems.

The Data Pitch program is supported by the EU's Horizon 2020 initiative, an 80 billion euro R&D fund for financing small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. This European Open Data Initiative - Data Pitch - aims to combine a company's resources with the agility and innovation of startups and is the result of the collaboration between several European organizations of different scales: the University of Southampton, the Open Data Institute in London, the Beta-I startup in Lisbon and the data company Dawex Systems of Lyon.

The accelerator will provide more than 50 European startups and SMEs with up to €100,000 equity free funding, as well as advice, investment opportunities and access to data from established companies and the public sector. Data Pitch will focus on areas such as smart cities, Big Data privacy, tourism, food and agriculture, health, retail and telecommunications, among others.

Beginning on July 1, 2017, startups and SMEs will be able to apply for this program whose purpose, aim and ambition is to create an ecosystem of innovation for Europe where large companies and innovative startups work and learn together to use data to solve problems of a social nature. This program will be operational throughout Europe and its funding comes from the EU's Horizon 2020 program.

Startups - there are 50 places - will be selected in October and November. Each program will have a duration of 6 months, during which the challenge is the development of innovative products and services using data and applying them to social, environmental, health, logistical and/or educational problems.

In the digital age, every organization - whether public or private, large or small - generates and possesses a large amount of substantial data. But not all companies, organizations and/or entities have the opportunity to use such data effectively.

For startups or SMEs to qualify for this open data initiative they must be established in a European Union country, have less than 250 employees and have a revenue of less than 50 million euros.

More information www.datapitch.eu.