Amsterdam, 26 June 2018 – Digi.Bio, a startup based in the A-Lab in Amsterdam, has been awarded the Anthony Fokker Prize, one of the Dutch Data Science Awards, by the Royal Dutch Society of Sciences (KHMW) and Big Data Alliance. Digi.Bio has been selected for their development of the digital biology processor, the first of its kind in the world. The festive presentation of the prizes took place on Tuesday 12 June in the Oude Lutherse Kerk, Singel, Amsterdam.
Big data and data sciences are at the base of almost every innovation and the societal and economical impact are enormous. The initiators want to put the Netherlands prominently on the map as a center for data science. With the awards, they hope to stimulate entrepreneurship and scientific research. The Anthony Fokker Prize is aimed at startups that use data science in an innovative way. Winners of the prize received a 3000 euro award.
About Digi.Bio
Digi.Bio was founded in 2017 at the Waag Society in Amsterdam and is specialized in Digital Microfluidics (DMF) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is aimed at automating biological research and making it scalable. Their first product is a desktop device that enables plug-and-play scientific research and makes automation accessible for laboratories all over the world.
Digi.Bio started as a hobby project in the Fablab and Wetlab at the Waag, institute for technology and society located at the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam, and grew out to a serious company through ACE Venture Labs, a startup incubator at Amsterdam Science Park. After this, the team joined HAX, a hardware accelerator in Shenzhen, China, and developed there further their technology from prototype to product.
About the initiators
The KHMW, the oldest academic society of the Netherlands, was founded in 1752 to improve science and build a bridge between science and society.
The Big Data Alliance was founded in 2015 as a partnership between companies, universities and research facilities, with the target to reveal knowledge, share expertise and research and stimulate innovation in the field of data science. Both organizations are initiators of the Dutch Data Science Awards. They are being supported by AIMMS, Lubbers De Jong, KPMG and ORTEC, all companies with strong technological background.
