Some people will soon be richer for good ideas. On 30 October, the Otto Mønsted Foundation will for the sixth time present The Bright Idea award and a total of DKK 500,000 to talents from Danish universities. The announcement of this year’s winners will take place during the Digital Tech Summit (free admission) in Øksnehallen on 30 October on the Startup Stage at 16:15. Afterwards, we and the country’s universities invite you to a drink at the bar where you can meet familiar and new partners from companies, funding and universities.
The Bright Idea 2024 is awarded in two categories, early-stage and late-stage, with a DKK 250,000 prize for each of the winning ideas, which in the jury’s opinion is convincingly innovative and has significant commercial potential. The award recognises the award winners’ dazzling work, but also encourages this year’s winners to further develop their idea, product, process or solution.
A day of rich opportunities
As part of the award ceremony, former award winner, electrical engineer Ahmed Ammar shares his experiences as a researcher and entrepreneur. Ahmed Ammar completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark in 2020 and received The Bright Idea in 2022 in the late-stage category for his research contributions to the LED driver industry.
Meet this year’s winners in 2022
He has supervised over 20 students at bachelor, master and PhD level. In addition to his ongoing research activities, Ahmed is interested in technology commercialisation and is involved in various spinout projects. He is a co-founder of Lotus Microsystems, which specialises in developing advanced power modules and thermal management solutions for feature-rich electronic devices.
Meet Ahmed and the approximately 5,000 other executives, specialists and students visiting the Nordic region’s largest deep-tech fair, with AI, cybersecurity, supercomputing and robotics as the main tracks for the programme.
You can read more about the Digital Tech Summit programme here
As in previous years, this year’s submitted research ideas are judged and categorised by a jury that represents a broad field of high professionalism and innovation with jury members from business, representatives from the Danish Export and Investment Fund, Bioinnovation Institute, universities and more.
They have assessed this year’s submitted ideas based on excellence in thought, communication, analysis and documentation. The ideas must also demonstrate business vision and understanding.
The jury behind The Bright Idea Award consists of:
Kigge Hvid, partner, JA studio, Ole Kring, partner, EIFO, Bjarne Kjær Ersbøll, professor DTU Compute and board member of the Otto Mønsted Foundation, Jesper Højberg Christensen, adjunct professor at CBS, Nis Alstrup, chairman of the Otto Mønsted Foundation, Karina Bergstrøm Larsen, director of Q-Consulting, Christian Brix Tillegreen, senior business developer, Bioinnovation Institute, Nigel Edmondson, adm. director, MADE and Vibeke Svendsen, board member of the Otto Mønsted Foundation.

Photo: David Foli