Association for Foreign Investment

2008/04/23, 23 April 2008: The 2007 Business Project of the Year Awards presented to today's most successful entrepreneurs

Prague, 22 April 2008: Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Říman today presented Business Project of the Year 2007 awards to the managers of the projects Oxidation Technology for Monocrystal Production, Science and Technology Park and Technology Transfer Centre at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín, Science-Research Coal Institute, CPIT Technology Pavilion of the Technical University in Ostrava and the Packaging Producers Cluster.

“Awards were presented to the most successful Czech entrepreneurs who received support for their projects from European Union structural funds and from the state budget,” said Alexandra Rudyšarová, acting CEO of CzechInvest.

The winners were presented awards as part of the 77th Žofín Forum on the topic “OPEI – Call for Czech Entrepreneurs”. Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Říman, Miroslav Elfmark, director of the MIT structural-funds section, and Alexandra Rudyšarová, acting CEO of CzechInvest, appeared at the forum with their contributions to the current calls for submission of aid applications and presented awards to the most successful entrepreneurs of the year.

Awards were presented to entrepreneurs in five categories:

Project with the Greatest Innovation Potential

This award was won by the company CRYTUR, spol. s r.o. for the project Oxidation Technology for Monocrystal Production. The award was accepted by the company’s managing director, Jindřich Houžvička.

Science and Technology Park of the Year

The winner in this category was the Science and Technology Park and Technology Transfer Centre at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín. The award was accepted by university registrar Alexander Černý.

Training Project of the Year

The Training Project of the Year award was presented to the Science-Research Coal Institute, a.s. for the area of operational safety and fire and explosion prevention. The award was accepted by Sylva Kazárová, deputy chairperson of the board, and Libor Štroch, company director.

Business Incubator of the Year

The winner in this category was the CPIT Technology Pavilion of the Technical University in Ostrava. The award was accepted by Tomáš Čermák, university rector, and Václav Lukeš, director of the business incubator.

Cluster of the Year

The Cluster of the Year award went to OMNIPACK, Packaging Producers Cluster. The award was accepted by Petra Šišková, cluster manager.

This year marks the third edition of this prestigious competition organised by CzechInvest in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Association for Foreign Investment.

The winning projects were selected by an interdepartmental committee composed of representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, CzechInvest and independent evaluators. For each category, various committees were set up to evaluate the projects according to pre-determined criteria, particularly the quality and potential of the given project and its benefit for the given area. Three outstanding projects were nominated in each category, from which the absolute winner was selected.

MORE ABOUT THE WINNING PROJECTS

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Category: Project with the Greatest Innovation Potential

CRYTUR is a company based in Turnov and its core activity is research and development in the area of natural and technical sciences and production of other chemical substances and preparations. The aim of the winning project was to introduce a new technology using oxidation conditions for the production of monocrystals for use in high-tech applications for high-performance lasers and for imaging systems such as X-ray cameras, tomography and electron microscopes. The project’s main investment was focused primarily on cultivation furnaces for growing crystals under oxidation conditions, as well as on technologies for machine processing. The total costs of the project amounted to CZK 18,395,000 and a grant in the amount of CZK 7,158,000 was requested from the Innovation Programme.

Category: Science and Technology Park of the Year

The primary aim of the Science and Technology Park and Technology Transfer Centre at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín is to establish infrastructure for the dynamic development and activities of innovative companies. Construction of the science and technology park and centre will contribute to facilitating the implementation of projects undertaken by companies associated therein, leading to their increased competitiveness and creation of new jobs, as well as to the growing prestige and prosperity of the Zlín region. The park will concentrate firms engaged in the development of innovative products based on polymer materials for the healthcare and food-production industries. The purpose of the centre is to coordinate activities between the academic and industrial spheres. This primarily concerns the provision of expert consulting services in the area of intellectual and industrial property, organisation of technology and cooperative exchanges, participation in trade fairs, conferences, seminars, etc. A partial aim of the project is to create conditions for the entrepreneurial activities of graduates, doctoral candidates and scientific workers at TBU in Zlín. The total costs of the project amount to CZK 225,796,000 and the amount of aid requested from the Prosperity Programme amounts to CZK 142,210,000.

Category: Training Centre of the Year

The main mission of VVUÚ, a.s., formerly Vědeckovýzkumný uhelný ústav (Science-Research Coal Institute), is to resolve issues of safety technologies used in deep mines. The project, for which the company received a grant, is focused on building a training centre that will serve primarily for educating the company’s employees as well as the expert public in the areas in which the company operates and is accredited and certified. The training centre’s capacity is 72 persons and it contains trainers, simulators and technological models of actual systems that respond to safety risks, fires and explosions. The total costs of the project within the Training Centres Programme amounted to CZK 5,800,476, and the reimbursed amount was CZK 2,492,000.

Category: Business Incubator of the Year

The primary aim of the CPIT – TL2 Technology Pavilion project is to construct the CPIT pavilion building and to support innovation processes and targeted manipulation of companies’ production programmes, thus increasing their competitiveness, product sales and production while creating new jobs. CPIT – TL2 will create an environment for firms with innovation potential and support their establishment and development. Construction of the centre should also lead to the creation of opportunities for young research workers, particularly top graduates of the Technical University in Ostrava. Thanks to the project, 40 companies will be supported and 225 jobs will be created. The total costs of the project within the Prosperity Programme amount to CZK 226,196,000 and the aid amount requested by the recipient is CZK 148,790,000.

Category: Cluster of the Year

OMNIPACK, the Packaging Producers Cluster was established in 2005 as the result of the successfully completed projected called Search for Companies for the OMNIPACK Cluster. Having grown from the original 21 to the current 25 members, the cluster is a grouping of mainly small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the packaging industry and related fields in the Hradec Králové, Pardubice and Vysočina regions. Each of these companies specialises in a particular production technology in the area of packaging. The cluster’s mission is to support and develop the packaging industry by strengthening competitiveness and innovation activities. The key project consists in the construction of the OMNIPACK Cluster’s Joint Development and Testing Centre. Within the cluster’s projects, the members perform joint marketing, promotion and human resources development. Project costs within the Clusters Programme amount to CZK 72,235,000 and the grant amount is CZK 44,901,000.