As Data Pitch draws to a close, we took to the stage at the ODI Summit this week to reflect upon the impact the programme has had, and the importance of data-driven innovation. 

Speaking to a packed room, Elena Simperl, Data Pitch programme Coordinator and Director of Southampton Data Science Academy explained how corporate and sectoral challenges can be solved through sharing data, with the help of programmes such as Data Pitch.  There was also an opportunity to hear from a panel of programme participants discussing how successful their collaborations were during the accelerator.  Taking part were Data Providers Christian Mittermayr, Project Manager at Greiner Packaging and Simone Braun, Head Of Business Development, Uniserv as well as startup entrepreneurs Nicolas Hornillos, Co-Founder of Obuu and Daniel Vila Suero, Co-Founder of Recognai.

Over three years, the Data Pitch programme;

  • Supported 47 startups from 13 different EU countries;
  • Worked with 11 corporate and public sector organisations (Data Providers);
  • Created 112 jobs;
  • Generated €14.8m in sales, investments and efficiencies. 

Orsola De Marco, Head of Innovation Programmes at the ODI, said:

“Sharing data enables businesses and governments to innovate and create products and services that solve sector challenges and fuel economic growth and productivity. Every company needs to think about how they can share data to unlock the economic value at scale. Organisations not thinking like this will struggle to compete on the global stage.

“The ODI’s experience of helping a variety of stakeholders in the private and public sectors to gain value from sharing data enables us to really understand how to overcome the challenges to unlock innovation.”

At the end of the day, three special Data Pitch awards were announced by Sir Nigel Shadbolt, the UK’s AI expert and ODI co-founder, recognising outstanding successes during the programme. Read more about them here.

Image credit © Paul Clarke used under CC by 4.0