Call: Food scanner

Horizon Prizes are challenge prizes (also known as 'inducement' prizes) which offer a cash reward to whoever can most effectively meet a defined challenge. They act as an incentive for innovation. They prescribe the goal but not who the innovator should be or how the goal should be achieved.

Food-related health problems such as food allergies, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease have grown to epidemic proportions and are taking a heavy toll on our society and our health systems.

Some figures:

• According to the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology about 17 million Europeans suffer from food allergies, with 3.5 million of them less than 25 years of age
• Globally about 35 % of adults are overweight, with half a billion of them obese. Obesity is affecting people at ever younger ages: today 43 million preschool children or nearly 7 % of all under-fives are overweight
• The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimated that in Europe 35 million adults had diabetes (both type 1 and type 2) in 2011. This is projected to increase by 23%, to 43 million in 2030
• According to the WHO, cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes more than half of all deaths across the European Region; CVD causes 46 times the number of deaths and 11 times the disease burden caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined in Europe; 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable and diabetes is a major risk factor and trigger for cardiovascular disease. Healthier food intake could reduce these numbers

Challenge

The Horizon Prize for a food scanner will be awarded to a mobile solution that analyses precisely, quickly and efficiently food composition, nutrition facts and potentially harmful ingredients such as allergens. It should also be able to provide feedback to users regarding their health and lifestyle.

The contest is open to any single person and legal entity or groups of legal entities established in EU Member States or in countries associated to Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme.

This €1 million prize will be split into a maximum of three awards: 800 000 € will go to the winner and 100 000 € each to the first and second runner-ups.