Patents on the soles of your shoes...: EPO Young Inventors Awards 2025

Monday, May 19, 2025

EPO Young Inventors Awards 2025 - The Jury

Chaired by Wolfgang M. Heckl, the Director General of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the European Patent Office 10-member jury, for the Young Inventors Awards, largely consisted of former Young Inventor finalists (seven members), together with three former European Inventor Award Finalists.

The Young Inventor proposals do not necessarily have to be patented inventions, although they are all required to be otherwise publicly published initiatives. Likewise, the Young Inventors competing do not have to be from countries that are members of the European Patent Convention. All of the proposals received are evaluated for form and compliance with the competition rules, before they are forwarded to the Jury for selection of the ten finalists, the Tomorrow Shapers.

Below, a list of the ten members of the Jury, together with the YouTube videos that present their work, previously honored by the European Patent Office.

Catia Bastioli is currently CEO of the Novamont Group, and inventor of bio-degradable plastics.

Khaoula Ben Ahmed is the co-founder and CEO of GEWINNER, and co-inventor of the MOVOBRAIN wheelchair, a wheelchair controlled in multiple ways, including facial and brain-driven modes.

Rafaella de Bona Gonçalves is a designer focussed on social innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainability. In particular, she designed and developed sanitary products to fight "period poverty" in her native Brazil.

Filipa de Sousa Rocha is a PhD student in informatics at the University of Lisbon, focusing on inclusive and accessible education, in particular for blind and visually impaired children.

David Devos is currently a professor of medical pharmacology at the University of Lille, and an expert in developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease).

Fionn Ferreira is a scientist, inventor and sustainability advocate dedicated to eradicating microplastics from water and driving the circular economy forward. In particular, he developed a magnet-based method to safely and efficiently remove microplastics from water.

Valentyn Frechka is co-founder and Chief Technical Officer at Releaf Paper, the world's first producer of pulp and paper made of green wastes.

Rochelle Niemeijer is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Nostics. She is the inventor of an AI-driven test kit to identify bacteria, within the context of Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR).

G. Fertram Sigurjonsson is currently the CEO of Kerecis, a biotechnology company that advances healing human wounds with fish skins.

Erin Smith is an entrepreneur and inventor of FacePrint, a screening tool that uses AI to analyze facial expressions that indicate the onset of Parkinson's.