Emerging Europe Announces Nominees for 2019 Awards

From a total of 949 applications representing all 23 countries of emerging Europe, 120
companies and organisations, spread across 12 categories, have been officially nominated for the Emerging Europe Awards. In addition, 23 investment promotion
agencies and 75 cities have been included in two research projects: the Investment
Promotion Report and the Business-Friendly City Perception Index.
Here are the Nominees:
1. Global Champion of the Year — a category open to companies from the region with no
foreign capital that strengthened their operations outside the region, organically or
through acquisition.
• Adamed (Poland)
• CCC (Poland)
• Blue Projects (Romania)
• Cleveron (Estonia)
• Grupa Nowy Styl (Poland)
• Inter Marine Group (Poland)
• LUG (Poland)
• PPF Group (Czech Republic)
• Valmera Glass (Latvia)
• Wielton (Poland)
2. Regional Champion of the Year — a category open to companies from the region that
strengthened their operations and/or expanded to new countries within the emerging
Europe region, organically or through acquisition.
• AD Plastik (Croatia)
• Conte (Belarus)
• Grampet Group (Romania)
• Itaka (Poland)
• Maxima Grupe (Lithuania)
• Mokate (Poland)
• OTP (Hungary)
• Sazska Group (Czech Republic)
• Tucano Coffee (Moldova)
• United Group (Serbia)
3. Foreign Direct Investment Project of the Year — a category assessing investment
projects which have had a positive impact on the country or local area in which they have
been implemented or completed.
• Aerostructure Technologies Cyclone (Georgia)
• Balfin (Albania)
• Bayer (Ukraine)
• Continental (Lithuania)
• Jaguar Land Rover (Slovakia)
• Mercedez Benz (Poland)
• Milteks (Georgia)
• Multivac (Bulgaria)
• Neo Group (Lithuania)
• Telamon (North Macedonia)
4. Research and Development Project of the Year — a category looking at R&D
investment projects established in a country in the emerging Europe region, which uses
local talent and expertise thus creating highly-skilled jobs.
• Acronis (Bulgaria)
• Devexperts (Bulgaria)
• Ericsson (Hungary)
• Gideon Richter (Hungary)
• Hello 2 (Kosovo)
• RoboticsX (Slovenia)
• TCL Research (Poland)
• Teslasuit (Belarus)
• Verint Systems (Romania)
• Viavi Solutions (Romania)
5. Innovation Initiative of the Year — a category open to companies and entities
operating in emerging Europe, which have implemented innovative practices or
technologies in their products, services or processes, resulting in a significant
improvement in the effectiveness or results of their business, sector or industry.
• Badamy Geny (Poland)
• Barin.io (Estonia)
• eInspector (Serbia)
• Holo4Lab (Poland)
• Lightopsy (Poland)
• Quick Cash AI (Georgia)
• ROL (Lithuania)
• Santander One Pay FX (Poland)
• Solaris (Poland)
• Ukrtransgaz (Ukraine)
6. City FDI Strategy of the Year — a category assessing the strategies of municipal
investment promotion departments or agencies, evaluating their creativity, effectiveness
and success.
• Debrecen (Hungary)
• Galați (Romania)
• Klaipėda (Lithuania)
• Kraków (Poland)
• Łódź (Poland)
• Niš (Serbia)
• Poznań (Poland)
• Sosnowiec (Poland)
• Vilnius (Lithuania)
• Wrocław (Poland)
7. Tourism Campaign of the Year — a category assessing national, regional and municipal
tourism promotion campaigns in 2018, focusing on their creativity, effectiveness and
success.
• #beourguest (Moldova)
• #EstonianWay (Estonia)
• Georgia Travel (Georgia)
• Minskgorspravka (Belarus)
• Moustache tour (Slovenia)
• Spice of Europe (Hungary)
• The G-spot Vilnius (Lithuania)
• Tirana Photo Festival (Albania)
• Two million reasons (Slovenia)
• #visitPoland (Poland)
8. Renewal Project of the Year — a category covering projects which have transformed a
building, public space or community, bringing a neglected place back to life, creating
sustainable use and/or conserving heritage.
• Brandville (Ukraine)
• Gosposvetska Ljubljana (Slovenia)
• Networld Varna (Bulgaria)
• Open Theatre Tirana (Albania)
• Praga Koneser (Poland)
• Revitalisation of Łódź (Poland)
• Sisak Moslavina County (Croatia)
• Skanderbeg Tirana (Albania)
• UBB how we turned (Bulgaria)
• Writer’s Hub (Slovenia)
9. Social Impact Start-up of the Year — a category open to start-ups whose purpose is to
improve people’s lives. The start-up should have been set up after January 2016 and have
majority stakeholders from the emerging Europe region.
• CoPlay (Czech Republic)
• Echo (Georgia)
• Freewa Project (Croatia)
• Gater (Belarus)
• Genomtec (Poland)
• Glucocarer (Lithuania)
• Holoroad (Poland)
• Insignes Lab (Poland)
• Lingva.Skills (Ukraine)
• OmoLab (Croatia)
10. Young Empowerment Initiative of the Year — a category covering initiatives in 2018,
whose goals are to increase young people’s opportunities, awareness, self-confidence and
engagement in society.
• City Incubator (Slovenia)
• Deti MBA (Belarus)
• Mladiinfo (North Macedonia)
• Promocija Montenegro (Montenegro)
• Tekwill (Moldova)
• Transfer HUB (Poland)
• UA Tech at CES 2018 (Ukraine)
• UCGA Educational Programme Board Direction (Ukraine)
• Ukraine Reformers Architecture (Ukraine)
• Zicer Startup Factory (Croatia)
11. Equality-Friendly Initiative of the Year — a category open to entities whose initiatives
promote inclusion and equal treatment of individuals or groups regardless of gender, age,
ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
• Charity I see (Belarus)
• Everyone’s Business (Lithuania)
• iFamily (Belarus)
• Ilovediversity (Poland)
• LGBT Friendly Certificate (Slovenia)
• Matra (Hungary)
• New Door NGO (Latvia)
• Sara Rahabli (Azerbaijan)
• Space for Girls (Poland)
• Youth Cancer Europe (Romania)
12. Young Influencer of the Year — a category open to young people who — through
politics, social activism, another influencing activity or by their own example — influenced
society in their community, country or in the wider region, for the better.
• Florin Badita (Romania)
• Olga Grudniak (Poland)
• Mateusz Hołda (Poland)
• Ondrej Kania (Czech Republic)
• Edvin Kanka Cudic (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
• Timotej Kotnik (Slovenia)
• Olga Kudinenko (Ukraine)
• Margo Lazarenkova (Belarus)
• Marek Materek (Poland)
• Taras Yavorskyy (Ukraine)
Similarly to 2018, Emerging Europe has run investment promotion research, which
assessed the performance of 23 national agencies promoting their countries as an
attractive foreign direct investment destination in two areas — communications and
enquiry handling. The investment promotion agencies included are: the Albanian
Investment Development Agency, Azpromo (Azerbaijan), Business Armenia, the Croatian
Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts CzechInvest, the Development Agency
of Serbia, Enterprise Estonia (EAS), the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of Bosnia
Herzegovina, the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency, Invest Bulgaria, Enterprise
Georgia, Invest Lithuania, Invest Moldova, Invest North Macedonia, the Investment and
Development Agency of Latvia, Invest Romania, the Kosovo Investment and Enterprise
Support Agency, the Montenegrin Investment Promotion Agency, the National Agency of
Investment and Privatisation of Belarus, the Polish Investment and Trade Agency, the
Slovak Investment and Development Agency, Spirit Slovenia and Ukraine Invest.
In 2019, Emerging Europe has also run a survey among dozens of location experts who
looked at the brand, economic potential, business climate, available pool of talent,
infrastructure and connectivity, quality of life and the support of local authorities in the
following cities:
Tirana (Albania), Yerevan (Armenia), Baku, Gəncə, Sumqayit (Azerbaijan), Brest, Gomel,
Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk (Belarus), Sarajevo, Banja Luka (Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Burgas, Plovdiv, Sofia, Varna (Bulgaria) Zagreb (Croatia), Brno, Ostrava, Prague (Czech
Republic), Tallinn (Estonia), Tbilisi (Georgia) — Budapest, Debrecen (Hungary), Prishtina
(Kosovo), Riga (Latvia), Kaunas, Vilnius (Lithuania), Chișinău (Moldova), Podgorica
(Montenegro), Skopje (North Macedonia), Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Częstochowa, Gdańsk,
Gdynia, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Lublin, Poznań, Radom, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Toruń,
Warsaw, Wrocław (Poland), Brașov, Bucharest, Cluj Napoca, Constanța, Craiova, Galați,
Iași, Ploiești, Timișoara (Romania), Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad (Serbia), Bratislava, Košice
(Slovakia), Ljubljana (Slovenia) Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv, Luhansk, Lviv,
Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhia (Ukraine).
The Emerging Europe Council has also chosen the laureates of the Günter Verheugen
Remarkable Achievement Award and the Princess Marina Sturdza Remarkable
Achievement Award for the Region. The names will be announced shortly.
Statistics (number of nominees per country — Business-Friendly City and National
Investment Promotion Agency excluded)
Albania — 4
Armenia — 0
Azerbaijan — 1
Belarus — 8
Bosnia & Herzegovina — 1
Bulgaria — 5
Croatia — 5
Czech Republic — 4
Estonia — 3
Georgia — 5
Hungary — 6
Kosovo — 1
Latvia — 3
Lithuania — 9
Moldova — 3
Montenegro — 1
North Macedonia — 1
Poland — 32
Romania — 7
Serbia — 3
Slovakia — 1
Slovenia — 8
Ukraine — 9

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