Tom Michels;
Credit: Salonkee / JCI
The Junior Chamber International (JCI) of Luxembourg has announced the winners of this year's Creative Young Entrepreneur Luxembourg (CYEL) competition.
On Wednesday 25 November 2020, JCI Luxembourg presented the CYEL awards for the fourteenth time at Luxembourg's Chamber of Commerce. Due to the pandemic, this year's award ceremony was held around a smaller audience, although it was made available to a wider audience via a live broadcast.
The winner of this year's edition and therefore the most creative young entrepreneur 2020 was Tom Michels. The 29-year-old Luxembourger is the Co-Founder and CEO of Salonkee, a fast-growing startup that developed the salonkee.lu platform for making hairdresser and beauty salon appointments online. Salonkee also provides salon owners with an all-in-one salon management solution and is now rapidly expanding in other countries across Europe.
Second place went to Marzio Schena from ANote Music, a European marketplace for investing in music royalties, which he founded together with Matteo Cernuschi and Grégoire Mathonet.
Marcin Kulik from Eiravato took home third prize. With his startup Eiravato, Marcin aims to empower clients to digitise waste data and deliver on their sustainable development goals by using both Big Data Waste Classification and Blockchain Material Tracking.
This year's "Coup de Coeur" award went to Mara Kroth from GoldenMe. Initially started as a student project, GoldenMe is a platform co-founded by Mara Korth and Johannes Heuschkel, dedicated to assisting and facilitating digital literacy among the elderly and thus preventing social isolation.
Traditionally, a representative of the CYEL sponsors awards the prizes. This year, BIL awarded 1st prize to Tom Michels, Bonn, Steichen & Partners awarded 2nd prize to Marzio Schena, who was represented by his co-founders, LaLux and Atoz awarded 3rd prize to Marcin Kulik, who could not be present, and Smile awarded the "Coup de Coeur" to Mara Kroth.
