ESG Innovation Challenge #HDB4ElevateGreece: Innovation and New Ideas at the Forefront – Hellenic Development Bank
On November 15 and 16, the final phase of the ESG Innovation Challenge took place at the offices of the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB).
This is a groundbreaking innovation competition aimed at creating and implementing new methods for evaluating businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), not only based on financial criteria related to their economic status but also with criteria such as:
- a) Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors,
and
- b) Criteria related to the level of innovation and evaluation of a project or business (Innovation criteria).
The competition, which began on September 11 with the announcement by the Deputy Minister for Research and Innovation, Mr. Christos Dimas, and the Chairwoman and CEO of HDB, Ms. Athena Chatzipetrou, saw the participation of many startups from Elevate Greece, which submitted their proposals.
The companies that presented their ideas for the ESG theme were:
- Libra AI Technologies IKE
- Finloup SA
- Cognitiv+
- LB Linked Business SA
- ResNovae Private Company
- SmartRep IKE
- Holistic
For the “Innovation” theme, the companies that presented their ideas were:
- Entelechy Monoprosopi IKE
- Renvis
- Founderhood & EV Loader Consortium
- Mantis Business Innovation
- Fraud Line IKE
Each company’s presentation lasted 7 minutes, followed by a 7-minute Q&A session with the Evaluation Committees, which were composed of the following members:
ESG Evaluation Committee
- Mr. Michalis Andreadis, Chief Director of Operations & Market Development at Hellenic Exchanges S.A.
- Mr. Haris Doukas, Associate Professor of Energy & Environmental Policy at NTUA
- Mr. Stergios Sougioutzoglou, General Director of HDB
- Mr. Konstantinos Kalogerakis, Director of FinTech Innovation at HDB
- Mr. Panagiotis Papageorgiou, Director of Business Innovation at HDB
Innovation Evaluation Committee
- Mr. Antonis Livieratos, Assistant Professor of Business Administration & Organizations at NKUA and scientific advisor to the startup accelerator “Archimedes”
- Mr. Angelos Tsakanikas, Associate Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at NTUA
- Mr. Stergios Sougioutzoglou, General Director of HDB
- Mr. Panagiotis Papageorgiou, Director of Business Innovation at HDB
- Mr. Konstantinos Kalogerakis, Director of FinTech Innovation at HDB
The results of the competition are expected to be announced in the coming days.
