Partech Shaker

As the European edition of the prestigious MIT Innovators Under 35 Awards enters its 8th year, the Partech Shaker has teamed up with the initiative for its 3rd edition in France.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology publication the MIT Technology Review first appeared over a century ago in 1899. Since then, the journal has forged an international reputation for itself within the technology sector – nowadays known simply as tech. In 1999 it began curating an annual award to find the most outstanding innovators in the US: the first list to be published named 100 prize-winners under 35. In 2005, that list was reduced to 35 names. The award has attracted over 20,000 visitors to various events since its inception, conferring prizes on almost 800 innovators including creator of Google Sergey Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and the inventor of PayPal, Max Levchin.

2008 saw the award extended to other continents, with a European edition comprising 4 countries: France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Over a hundred people have been on the jury in the 6 years since then, handing out awards to 50 young innovators. 2012 prize-winners included Swede Daniel Ek, creator of Spotify, while SoundCloud inventor Alex Ljung from Germany was among last year’s cohort. In 2015 the European awards will also consider candidates from two new countries, Belgium and Poland.

France joined the initiative in 2013 and has already produced winning young talent in fields as diverse as education, medicine and biotechnology. The most recent edition saw an award bestowed on Rand Hindi, the young founder of big data startup Snips. Romain Lavault, General Partner of Partech Ventures, shared in the glory as the person who nominated Snips.

Since this initiative promotes new technological applications that drive forward the whole industry, the Partech Shaker is very keen to be involved alongside Numa, the Atelier and the Ecole Polytechnique. By talent-spotting innovators to nominate for this award, the Shaker campus is helping organisers to shine a light on the next generation of young talent across borders.

 

The 8th edition of the MIT Innovators Under 35 Europe regional version runs all year, with the French awards decided first – winners to be announced on 9 April 2015 – and Spain closing the awards in November.

The deadline for nominations and applications for the French edition is 16 February 2015.