On Wednesday 2 December 2020, the 24th edition of the FEDIL Innovation Award ceremony took place in Luxembourg: in order to comply with the sanitary measures in force, the ceremony took place in a small committee, in the presence of the Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot and the winners. 

The FEDIL Innovation Prize is traditionally organised every two years alternating with the Environment Prize and, since 1982, has honoured the efforts of Luxembourg companies in the area of ​​innovation and research.

In her welcome address, FEDIL President Michèle Detaille underlined the importance of the Innovation Prize: despite a year of unprecedented circumstances, innovation remains a priority. Research and innovation will be crucial to meeting the two major challenges of the years to come: energy transition and digital transformation.

For the 2020 promotion of the Innovation Prize, the jury decided to award four prizes among more than twenty applications submitted. Alongside the traditional diploma, the winners were awarded a trophy, printed in 3D, created by the students of the “LEM.SCIENCE” workshop of the Lycée Ermesinde Mersch under the coordination of Mr. Nick Aschman as well as by the students of the Lycée Technical Arts and Crafts under the coordination of Madame Leslie Weissen.

2020 winners

The Innovation Prize in the "Process" category was awarded to Ceratizit Luxembourg S.à r.l for the "Additive Manufacturing of Tungsten Carbide Hardmetals" project.

In order to meet growing demand, Ceratizit has developed new manufacturing technologies such as 3D carbide printing which allows rapid planning and implementation of projects without resorting to molds and dies which are time consuming to produce. and requires the use of expensive tools necessary for machining hard metal parts. This technology also offers possibilities for shaping, in particular for producing shapes that were previously considered impractical.

The Innovation Prize in the "Product" category went to B Medical Systems for the "Innovative wide range voltage stabilizer & freeze protection for robust vaccine cold chain" project.

B Medical Systems manufactures and distributes refrigeration solutions such as vaccine, laboratory and other refrigerators worldwide. While many health facilities in low- and middle-income countries often do not have access to reliable sources of electricity to keep life-saving vaccines at the required temperature, B Medical Systems has developed refrigerators with AC power. / direct current (AC / DC) and a set of protection to maintain the cold chain and preserve the effectiveness of vaccines.

The Innovation Prize in the "Digital" category was awarded to the company Earthlab S.A. for the "Max-ICS platform solution" project.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and data mining are fast becoming the keys to the future. It is within this framework that the start-up EarthLab Luxembourg imagined the Max-ICS platform, an integrated solution for the creation of models but also for using these models on large volumes and velocities of data. In particular, Max-ICS offers a set of very easy-to-use features covering data management, algorithms, network architectures, including pre-trained, as well as tools assisting the novice or experienced data scientist.

The Innovation Prize in the "Start-up" category was awarded to the company UFT S.A. for the "UFT SaaS DRT platform for on-demand ridepooling and fleet optimization" project.

Mobile technology is the watchword of the company UFT, which provides a complete software solution: an on-demand public transport service platform, offered to the largest European operators and transport authorities. Equipped with a powerful algorithm for matching and optimized routing, the platform ensures allocation of transport fleets simultaneously in accordance with passenger transport demands. In other words, it is about matching demand and resources in public transport.

The jury of the 2020 Innovation Prize was composed of: Ms Andreea Monnat (FNR), Simone Polfer (Ministry of the Economy), Marc Ferring (Luxinnovation GIE), MM. Jean Georges (Ateliers Nic. Georges), Pierre Hirtt, Pierre Kihn (Office Freylinger), Venant Krier (Poudrerie de Luxembourg SA), Philippe Osch (Hitec Luxembourg), Georges Thielen (Goodyear Innovation Center * Luxembourg) and Dr Gaston Trauffler (FEDIL).