CERN Accelerating science

Before taking a summer holiday, the CERN Entrepreneurship Meet-Up organised a pitching competition for aspiring entrepreneurs currently working at CERN. The meet-ups are an arena for CERN people who are interested in entrepreneurship and innovation to meet, discuss, learn and share ideas, and are arranged every other Wednesday.

The pitching competition gave the 13 participants 5 minutes to present their ideas, which ranged from automotive inverters for stationary solar installations to mobile phone apps for monitoring personal finances.

50-60 people were present to cheer on their CERN colleagues and see them being evaluated by a panel of judges consisting of Giovanni Anelli, Head of the Knowledge Transfer Group, Lucia Federspiel from the Technology Transfer Office at the University of Geneva, Reda El Andaloussi, local business angel and owner of Waves Ventures and Alberto Di Meglio, Head of the CERN Openlab.

Juan Mario Michan (middle) was named the winner with his air pollution control opportunity. Second place went to Tim Head (left) of Social Solutions Research, for developing a better body bag, while S. P. Mohanty’s (right) SmartDog presentation was third.

The Entrepreneurship Meet-Ups will now take a well-deserved summer holiday and the next meet-up will take place on the 26^th of August. More information on the meet-ups can be found here.