Our history
DEX Innovation Centre is a private innovation centre established in 2012 in the city of Liberec in the Czech Republic.
We believe that impactful digital innovation and research improve our societies through meaningful and needed co-creation of innovations.
In its 10 years of existence, DEX Innovation Centre focuses on activities on both the national and international levels.
What did we achieve in last 10 years
€30,000,000 fundraised
for innovative, impactful projects written by us.
We gave life to 15 large-scale, innovative projects that positively affected thousands of people. Most of the funded projects focus either on entrepreneurial support of startups and SMEs, healthcare innovation, education, or energy efficiency.
One of our goals is to provide complex fundraising services from the very beginning of idea making, through proposal writing and project facilitation to project & fund management.
50+ Innovations
co-created with our project partners, startups and public partners.
Our impact continues with innovations that people use today, including the Autoclusters Open Access Platform for cooperation between innovation actors in the automotive industry; an accelerator methodology for business knowledge transfer that led so far to the co-creation of 35 products, mostly in the healthcare and energy sectors; and HoCare2.0 SME and policy tools for impactful delivery and deployment of products & services for health and social care.
50+ Products Delivered
developed together with startups, SMEs and public partners.
Our acceleration methodology for business knowledge transfer has led to the co-creation of products mostly in the healthcare and energy sectors, while HoCare2.0 delivered SME and policy tools for health and social care.
300+ Startups
participated in our own or co-organized acceleration programmes.
We are proud of every single startup or technological team that we worked with and see a bright future for them. So far, the startups raised over EUR 6,000,000 and we are still counting.
Whalebone, the winner of the first DEXIC Accelerator batch, offers zero disruption cybersecurity products to telcos, ISPs and enterprises around the globe. InoCure is developing advanced nanotechnological solutions for daily use in healthcare, including faster, reliable and cost-efficient drug testing.
1,000+ Students
trained, starting from secondary schools, through universities to the generation 50+.
The activities range from short one-day or weekend-long Innovation Days, through summer schools, to complex and advanced training programmes such as the HelloAI RIS training programme focusing on the basics of artificial intelligence and its use in modern healthcare, or Live Circular Canvas for a structured learning experience in the circular economy.
Moreover, we established DEXIC FabLab, a one-stop-shop for rapid prototyping in the centre of Liberec.
Our focus areas
Health
The last few years showed that innovations in healthcare are critical for the advancement and mitigation of risks. Since 2018 we are part of EIT Health, a network of best-in-class health innovators backed by the EU.
Mutual cooperation brought the 4DigitalHealth Accelerator into life as a reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak. In two years we trained 14 teams working on solutions to directly improve patient care, such as smart patches monitoring wounds, virtual reality rehabilitation for the elderly, mental health services, or easier communication between patients and medical staff.
We also organize EIT Health Innovation Days in Czechia, where students meet entrepreneurs, healthcare specialists and coaches to design innovative ideas addressing real-life healthcare challenges. The HoCare2.0 project supported SMEs and public service providers to develop and deploy products and services for home care — 13 products and 7 services, including Social Ambulance, The Nutritional Support Assistant and the Casa Sicura telemonitoring service.
During the pandemic we developed DEXIC Vent, an open-source repository of 3D printed parts, mechanical components, source code and a step-by-step assembly tutorial for a low-cost lung ventilator of last instance, available to the community of makers under a CC license.
Energy
The energy sector nowadays brings many challenges, including green energy and new sources of energy. Since 2019 we are part of EIT InnoEnergy and together we are accelerating sustainable energy innovations.
Mutual activities resulted in several batches of the Primer pre-accelerator supporting innovators in the idea stage, co-organization of the PowerUp! competition where Pocket Virtuality placed 3rd among 22 European teams with a virtual maintenance tool, and investments into EIT InnoEnergy startups.
Our project PPI2Innovate taught public administrations about PPI (public procurement of innovative solutions), bringing solutions such as self-sufficient energy greenhouses or smart, multipurpose city LED lights with motion sensors and air pollution monitoring.
Moldova Power Accelerator helped 7 CleanTech, PowerTech, GreenTech, ClimateTech and Energy startups to better position their products on the market and boost sales. The winner, Uniqa Wall Systems, offers pre-engineered, in-factory-made, energy-efficient panelized homes assembled on-site within a week with zero waste.
Education
Education is important in all stages of our lives. We start our activities already with secondary school students and the teaching continues till the generation 50+.
DEXIC μFabLab is a modern technological one-stop-shop for people interested in 3D printing, PCB, IoT or robotization. It is a great example of a sustainable and still growing result of the New Generation Skills project.
More than 2,300 secondary school students were involved in a teaching process that encouraged their entrepreneurial spirit and taught them about the benefits of social and sustainable entrepreneurship.
University students, young scientists and PhD candidates can select from a wide range of education programmes in Czechia as well as abroad, including EIT Health or EIT InnoEnergy master's schools. HelloAI RIS fills the knowledge gap about practical aspects of the adoption of AI in medicine and collected more than 1,000 applications over the years.
Project eDigistars faced the challenges of the ageing population and their difficulties with employability, based on cooperation of labour offices, training organizations, local government and NGOs to create tools and certified trainings in digital skills for unemployed people 50+.
Selection of most impactful projects so far
Accelerator
Project Accelerator started back in 2017 with the goal to support SMEs in accessing money, particularly in their early stage of development. Our task was to deliver a methodology for an acceleration programme that can be used across territories.
In 2018 we held the 1st batch of DEXIC Accelerator in the Czech Republic, and our project partners did the same in 8 other European countries. The DEXIC Accelerator alone led to the acceleration of 22 teams. In 2020 its methodology was used for the 4DigitalHealth accelerator focused on healthcare startups (14 teams) and the Moldova Power Accelerator focused on energy startups (5 teams).
The methodology is further used in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, so the real impact is much bigger.