Hays’ ‘tech for good’ competition expands across Europe

18 Jun 2021

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Irish start-ups are encouraged to enter the second Super Connect for Good competition from Hays Technology and Empact Ventures.

Hays Technology and Empact Ventures have launched the second in a series of tech for good competitions.

Super Connect for Good is open to start-ups and scale-ups all over Europe. The competition founders want to discover the most innovative, talent-rich companies creating a positive impact on people’s lives by developing tech for good.

The competition is open to tech start-ups at the seed stage and scale-ups at Series A or B stage. An additional pre-seed challenge has also launched this year especially for early stage start-ups.

James Hallahan, director of Hays Technology UK and Ireland, said: “Following the success of last year’s competition, we are looking forward to again uncovering start-ups and scale-ups across the country and highlight the social change and difference to people’s lives they make. Not only do we endeavour to showcase the work of these organisations, through the various prizes on offer we will be able to provide exceptional support and networking opportunities to help these organisations accelerate to the next stage of their growth.”

Kosta Mavroulakis, founder and CEO of Empact Ventures, said: “We are honoured to be working on this high-impact initiative with Hays once again after the success of the last year’s competition, which really demonstrated how tech start-ups and scale-ups are changing people’s lives in every area from education to healthcare and public services.”

This year, Mavroulakis said, the tech for good challenge will expand its reach, bringing “opportunities and super connections” to a wider variety of tech start-ups and scale-ups. This includes expanding entries beyond UK and Ireland to all of Europe as well as introducing the pre-seed challenge and a new category for a clean-tech champion.

Winners will also be selected in categories such as AI, edtech, health-tech, medtech, smart cities and fintech.

Alongside Hays Technology and Empact Ventures, the competition is backed by partners including Dublin BIC, NatWest, OVHcloud Startup Program, Royal Agricultural University, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Microsoft for Startups, Siemens Mobility and more.

The newly introduced pre-seed challenge is backed by Microsoft for Startups while Siemens Mobility has added a new industry challenge to the line-up. The latter challenge is seeking out technology solutions to improve transport safety.

Prizes for winners of the various challenges include guaranteed pilots, funding, press coverage and more.

Entrants can apply to Super Connect for Good 2021 via the competition website.

Blathnaid O’Dea is Careers reporter at Silicon Republic

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