European Satellite Navigation Competition open for applications

The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) is looking for services, products, and business innovations that use satellite navigation in everyday life. Deadline of applications for this annual prize is June 30, 2015. The prize pool of the ESNC 2015 has a value of about € 1 million. The competition has both regional and international prizes and it is divided into a number of application fields. The Netherlands participate with the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) as regional organiser.

Over 30 prizes will be awarded. Prizes include cash awards, business incubation, business coaching, patent consulting, technical support, access to testing facilities, prototype development, publicity, marketing support and much more. Enterprises, scientific institutions, and individuals of legal adult age are entitled to participate in the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2015.

The regional expert teams will select, at their discretion, one winning idea for each participating region. From these regional winners and the special prize winners, under the supervision of a notary, an international expert team will select the Overall Winner 2015. The Organiser and the Partners shall assume no liability whatsoever for the outcome of the selection process. The main prize will be a grant of € 20,000 awarded by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen and the European GNSS Agency. In addition, the Overall Winner will have the opportunity to realise their idea as part of a six-month incubation programme in the region of their choice.

The winner of the Netherlands region will receive an incubation package worth € 15,000 sponsored by the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), the Space Business Incubation Center Noordwijk (SBIC), CGI, NLR, Verhaert Masters in Innovation, Zirkzee Group, and Haseltine Lake at the European Space Innovation Centre in Noordwijk.

The prizes of 2015 will be awarded by some of the most relevant institutional GNSS stakeholders, such as the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) in association with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). In addition, more than 20 partner regions from all over the world will host regional challenges.