Making your innovation fly

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Apart from the €1 million grant the winners of Global Change Award also get access to an accelerator program. But what is this program all about?

The one year long support is coached by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Accenture and H&M Foundation and is based on needs and goals ranging from business development, to communication training, technology support and management.

“Through the accelerator program we got the opportunity to be exposed to an amazing number of people who helped us to understand the transition from an idea to taking into consideration all the pieces of the supply chain such as lead times and pricing. This learning process was amazing”.

Enrica Arena, winner from 2016, Orange Fiber

Starting off with an innovation boot camp in Stockholm, provided by KTH Innovation, this week marks the beginning of the training and coaching program. The focus is on creating insight into where the winners are today, where they want to be at the end of the program and what type of support they will get through the program. The program will also cover practical workshops on how to pitch their idea, IPR protection and innovation development.

This week will be followed up by another week, hosted by Accenture in New York City. This week focuses on how to develop the winning ideas further, where Accenture provides circular economy management, leadership management, international development and retail insights, which aim to support the winners in developing their ideas further.

“The accelerator program shifted us to the global scale and made us understand how the supply chain within the fashion industry, which is very complex, actually works. Otherwise I don’t think it would be possible to actually understand this.”

Ann Runnel, winner from 2016, Reverse Resources

Another important corner stone of the accelerator program is about connecting the start-ups with the grown-ups; our winners get to have valuable meetings with existing companies within the industry, the ones with access to infrastructure, knowledge and the big markets. Through the H&M Foundation and H&M the winners will be provided with exclusive fashion industry access in Hong Kong. The winners will get the chance to build networks and try out their ideas within the fashion value chain.

Both Accenture and KTH are supporting the winners pro bono. They invest substantial amount of time and expertize together with us to provide the winners with coaching and training in order to realize the full potential of the winning ideas.

Press contact

Jasmina Sofić

Media Relations Responsible