INVENT

INVENT is an annual competition that celebrates our most exciting innovators and entrepreneurs, giving them an international platform and support to make the greatest impact.

The Catalyst Innovation Founder Award 2023

Our Innovation Founder award is given to a local innovator who has successfully pushed the possibility of their business idea beyond boundaries. Our Innovation Founders are all testament to the fact that in Northern Ireland and the North West region of Ireland, we are as capable as anywhere in the world at creating outstanding breakthrough businesses.

We need to build new heroes. We have a number of individuals who have founded significant innovation driven businesses who have received little or no recognition. The Innovation Founder Award is designed to annually promote the awareness, importance and status of founders.

Criteria

The guidelines are intentionally loose to allow maximum discretion to the judging panel. The criteria for the Innovation Founder award are:

The nominee has made an innovative breakthrough that has resulted in a huge benefit to society.
The nominee must have founded a corporation to commercialise it; or
The nominee founded an innovation driven business that is a large employer in Northern Ireland or the North West region of Ireland.

Nominate here

What is INVENT?

INVENT is an annual competition organised by Catalyst with headline partner Bank of Ireland, that celebrates our most exciting innovators and entrepreneurs, giving them an international platform and support to make the greatest impact.

Applications for INVENT 2023 have now closed.

INVENT Categories

This year, finalists' innovations will fit into one of the following five categories:

Greentech – Products, solutions and tech that enable a sustainable future.
Health and Wellbeing – Improving the quality of life through pushing the boundaries in life sciences, med tech and health promotion.
Product – A physical product designed and fabricated to offer the consumer or business a novel innovative solution.
Business Software – Computer software products or solutions used to satisfy the needs of an organisation rather than individual users.
Consumer Software – Consumer software is a class of commercial software that is sold directly to end-users as opposed to businesses.

Who should apply?

Apply for the programme if:

You have an innovative solution to a problem.
You’re a student completing a course project that you know is the next big thing.
You have been working on cutting edge research and now want to commercialise.
You have a side project and are ready to take the next step.

Now is the time to put your innovation in the spotlight!