Global CSS Awards ‘21 Launched as Part of MENA Digital Scaleup Summit

The International Chamber of Commerce and innovation advisory firm, Mind the Bridge, have teamed up for the second year in a row to launch the Corporate Startup Stars Awards (CSS) competition, as part of the MENA Digital Scaleup Summit in order to identify the world’s top 50 Corporate Startup Stars. CSS seeks to identify best practices worldwide in corporate-startup collaboration, whether through procurement, licensing, partnerships, accelerators, venture builders, CVCs, acquisitions, and other dedicated internal programmes, such as intrapreneurship.

Parameters for open innovation are constantly expanding and shifting in the rapidly changing economic climate of the contemporary moment. This sentiment was echoed in a press conference by Alberto Onetti, Chairman of Mind the Bridge.

“Unfortunately there is no silver bullet in open innovation,” he said. “There are multiple approaches that are continuously evolving over time. That’s why it is important to continue to track best practices at international level. The ultimate goal of Corporate Startup Stars is to identify role models and to incentivise others to follow suit.”

Inspired by the promising ecosystem of innovation in the Middle East, the decision to kick off this year’s competition from Dubai was no coincidence, considering the ever important forward-looking initiatives in the region like Expo 2020 Dubai and the ICC-ESCWA Centre of Entrepreneurship in Beirut.

Participation in the 2021 edition of the awards is free of charge and open to companies from all industries and all regions of the world. Applications should be submitted on the brand-new Corporate Startup Stars website no later than June 20th. Winners will be announced in December in Paris.

You can apply via the IFC and Mind the Bridge website.