The Homey team, with its innovative mobile application which motivates families in a fun way to do their house choirs, won the first prize at the international contest for the best ICT business idea in Lisbon.

At the end of October, the biggest European conference in the field of information and communication technologies »ICT Innovate, Connect, Transform« was held in Lisbon, and within its framework the competition »ICT Business Idea Contest« was organised.
Twelve best start-up teams from six countries participated in the contest. The Slovenian team Homey, which developed its innovative idea during the CREA Summer Academy 'Cities of the Future through Service Innovation', convincingly won the first place.

In June, the Regional Development Agency of Ljubljana Urban Region (RRA LUR) and the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana organised the CREA Summer Academy where participants, with the assistance of experienced mentors, learned about new creative approaches for service planning and worked in interdisciplinary teams where they tested and improved their business ideas.
CREA Summer Academies under the slogan » Creativity and ICT for New Entrepreneurship« were held in six partner countries; in addition to Slovenia they took place in Estonia, Italy, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, and they were attended by over 200 young entrepreneurs.

The winners of all summer academies took part in the international competition »ICT Business Idea Contest«. Slovenia was represented by the team Take it Smooth! with its new approach to healthy eating at the workplace and the team Homey with its innovative mobile application which motivates families in a fun way to do their house choirs.
With its comprehensive presentation and the innovative idea the latter impressed a 14 member international jury comprised of investors, representatives of support environments and partner countries.

The first three teams were awarded with an opportunity to join one of the three European incubators, namely the PoliHub in Milano, the Business Incubator Tallinn or the Ljubljana University Incubator.

One of the core aims of the CREA Summer Academy is forging interdisciplinary ties within start-up teams, which according to Sanja Zepan, member of the Homey team, significantly contributed to the quick and successful development of the idea. »New knowledge, expansion of our young team and forging ties with numerous experts who opened new opportunities for us, and that is the important advantage of participating in the summer academy,« underlined Zepan at the award ceremony.

Lilijana Madjar, MA, director of RRA LUR, also attended the event as a member of the expert jury and when the Homey team won she stressed that success, when faced with such broad international competition, also serves as proof that Ljubljana is creating an encouraging support environment for the development of promising young entrepreneurs: »Considering the successful results and experiences gained the next CREA Summer Academy planned for 2016 will be even better and more resounding.«