Award ceremony
On 27 November 2023, at the iCapital Award ceremony in Marseille, the European Commission announced the winners of the ninth edition of the European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital). Supported by the European Innovation Council under Horizon Europe, the prize recognises the role cities play in shaping the local innovation ecosystem and promoting game-changing innovation. Read more about the winners of the two award categories and the jury members.
Jury Members
The European Capital of Innovation
Delphine LaprayShe is the Director for Innovation, Smart City, Higher Education & Research in Métropole Aix Marseille Provence - winner of the iCapital Award 2022 in the category of the European Capital of Innovation. She is responsible for working out and implementing the innovation roadmap within the Metropolitan Economic Development Agenda which includes mapping, organising, and facilitating relations among the innovation ecosystem stakeholders. Delphine is the Project Director for designing and operating the Aix Marseille Innovation Platform, implementing the Smart city experimentation programme, launching innovation challenges, and organising the "Meetup Innov Provence" events dedicated to open innovation. She has vast experience in project management, designing public policies in economic development and innovation.
Justyna LinkeShe is the CEO and lead designer in Urban Workshop since 2014. They have worked with cities across Poland, as well as cities from Georgia and North Macedonia. She has been gaining this experience in particular in her cooperation with UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub as the lead of two projects: City Experiment Fund (covering the Eurasia region) and Urban Imaginaries(cities from the Eastern Partnership countries). She was part of committees reviewing applications from cities across Europe and Central Asia (in particular, but not limited to the Eastern Partnership) to become part of innovation programmes under Mayors for Economic Growth (joint initiative by the European Commission and UNDP). She is currently developing this area of expertise as Urban Workshop in cooperation with a business partner - Simpliciti sp. z o. o. (Dec 2022 - Aug 2023). The role of herself and her team is to conduct research focusing on the scope, indicators and evaluation tools for assessing individual innovation capabilities of local administration staff.
Milena IvkovicMilena Ivkovic is an architect, urban planner and civic participation innovator specialised in place-led participation through the lens of digital technologies.. Milena’s experience in the fields of urban planning includes working for Kuiper Compagnons planning consultancy (based in the Netherlands), Yellow Design Foundation (based in Belgium) and ISOCARP ( International Society of City and Regional Planners). Within ISOCARP, Milena managed the Urban Planning Advisory Teams (UPAT) programme for in-situ participatory charrettes and workshops on urban regeneration in China, Indonesia and South Africa, and led the dynamic content preparation of Placemaking Week China 2018 on behalf of ISOCARP. Within Yellow Design Foundation she managed several multi-stakeholder, participatory field researches on the quality of public space in collaboration with UN HABITAT and UITP, in China, India, and Sri Lanka.
Alexander SchmidtHe is the founder and CEO of BABLE. He holds two bachelor's degrees in environmental engineering and technically oriented business administration from the University of Stuttgart and a master's degree in transport engineering from Imperial College London. During his 7 years at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, he started working on business models for the charging infrastructure of electric vehicles and smart grids. He led several nationally and internationally publicly and privately funded research projects in the fields of smart mobility and data use in cities. From late 2014 to early 2016, he worked as a project manager in the Ambient Mobility Lab, the joint research lab of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which develops mobility services to the concept of Big Data Analytics. From January 2019 until December 2020, he was Interim Director of the EIT Urban Mobility and founded the Smart Society Academy, which is now fully part of the BABLE portfolio.
Winner: Lisbon (Portugal)
Lisbon’s tech scene has met unprecedented growth in the past two years. Home to one of the most dynamic ecosystems in Europe, the City is now branded the “Unicorn Capital” and has been attracting entrepreneurs from around the world. The City is putting in place a new strategy to develop large scale companies and connect technology with culture, sustainability, and citizen engagement.
2nd place: Warsaw (Poland)
An innovative approach is the key to creating a good place to live for all. Building such a place is what Warsaw cares about. There are three highlights in #Warsaw2030 Strategy that refers to this idea: ‘active resident’ – Warsaw encourages people to achieve their personal and professional goals, ‘friendly space’ – Warsaw creates a social environment in which everyone can feel secure, ‘open metropolis’ – Warsaw is open to the world and inspire others. They know that the success of this strategy depends on engagement of our citizens that they try to support.
3rd place: Lviv (Ukraine)
Lviv is a unique Ukrainian city in Eastern Europe that is dynamically developing and emphasizes the introduction of innovations in various areas of life, including medicine, technology, education, energy, and the environment. Its proactive communities, leadership in implementing reforms, speed of innovation, and support for startup culture improve the quality of life for every resident and ensure economic stability and democracy.