In Swedish Mining Innovation’s annual Innovation Idea Competition, an international jury of experts seek out the most promising innovations in Sweden. The winners goes home with SEK 600 000 in funding to commercialize their idea. Since 2015, 19 groundbreaking SMEs (small and medium enterprises) have won, including international success stories like Widefind, Thingwave and Flasheye. SMEs inject new technology and processes in industrial value chains and are critical for a robust innovation eco-system.
The idea can come from other sectors and thematic areas that can be applied in mining and metal production industries. As Swedish Mining Innovation hosted the final competition in 2024, past participants and industry show strong support of continuing the competition in the next generation of strategic innovation programs, such as Swedish Metals & Minerals.
– Over the years, the competition has been a catalyst for finding innovative and groundbreaking ideas that can contribute to and shape the future of our sector, says Lotta Sartz, Swedish Mining Innovation and chairman of the jury.
– It is fantastic to see new companies entering our industry thanks to this competition. Same as the industry in general, we still have a way to go with attracting more female entrepreneurs to this competition. Taking measurements to improve this in future competitions will increase the benefits to innovations for sustainable metal mineral supply further, says Charlotte Andersson, Program Director at Swedish Mining Innovation.
Accelerating product development
2024 winners NorrSpect and RockSigma are both planning to invest the prize money in growing their mining industry services.
– Winning this competition will give us funds to actually take the step and work with the mining industry directly. Without this, we would need to gain funding from our other projects and that would mean that we must wait to work with the mining industry. Now, we can start directly, says Ulrik Söderström & Aman Malhotra, NorrSpect AB.
An arena for new business
The competition is now a significant annual event, attracting industry and media attention.
– This is one of the best events out there. You always take away new ideas and approaches to work. It was especially fun today to see those that Boliden supported are now making significant strides towards presenting something to the market, says Erik Ronne, Research Manager Sustainability at Boliden.
Interviews with past participants reveals that the competition has several positive effects, such as brand awareness, validation and business development. It has also resulted in new joint ventures between participating companies.
Ida Rehnström, deputy CEO at FlashEye says:
– Swedish Mining Innovation Idea Competition gave us legitimacy and recognition – hugely important when you are a completely unknown company with new technology and new ideas. The recognition in the mining industry also helped the marketing efforts in other markets we work with as there are high demands for robustness and reliability in the mining industry.
Swedish Mining Innovation Idea Competition Winners
2024
RockSigma
NorrSpect
2023
MycoMine
VAST
2022
Flasheye
Radchat
2021
Hypex Bio Explosives Technology
RS Solutions (RockSigma)
2020
Sencept
2019
Atium
ReVibe Energy
2018
MBV Systems
ReVibe Energy
2017
Widefind
Innan
2016
ThingWave
Sustainalube
2015
Minalyze
Northern Mining Products
