Towards equality: four innovators win € 200,000 in 2017 European Social Innovation Competition

We’re thrilled to announce the winners of the 2017 European Social Innovation Competition! Chosen from a total of nearly 800 entries from more than 40 countries, the projects were each awarded €50,000 at the Awards Ceremony in Brussels on 26 October.

The winners of the 2017 European Social Innovation Competition++European Social Innovation CompetitionKennisland is one of the consortium partners who design and implement this challenge prize. Read more about it here. are:

• Buildx from the UK – an open source platform reinventing home building
• Feelif from Slovenia – a multimedia tool for blind and visually impaired people
• Saga from The Netherlands – a peer to peer learning platform

At the Awards Ceremony we heard from all ten Finalists of this year’s competition, presenting their ideas to reboot equality in Europe through social innovation and technology. Focusing on this year’s theme we also heard from tech and innovation experts sharing their experiences of creating a more equal society.Focusing on this year’s theme we heard from tech and innovation experts sharing their experiences of creating a more equal society. To find out more about all of this year’s winners, finalists, and semi-finalists, click here.

In addition to our Equality Rebooted winners, we also awarded a fourth Impact Prize to The Bike Project, a British social enterprise that refurbishes second hand bikes to donate to refugees and asylum-seekers, tackling the issue of lack of mobility, contributing to the users’ independence and access to services. The project has donated 1000 bikes to refugees in the space of a year saving users an estimated £1,040,000 in a year. 

To follow our updates about next year’s competition, check out @EUSocialInnov and #diogochallenge on Twitter.