After a three-year break, caused by the Covid pandemic, the CER Prize returned in style, set against the glamorous backdrop of Malta’s beautiful Mediterranean islands.
With over €400,000 already awarded in cash prizes at seven previous ceremonies, the CER Prize supports tech start-ups that innovate in ways that improve the World.

This year’s first-place winners in Malta were:
For 2020: Verónica Celis Vergara, founder of EnlightAID (Norway)
EnlightAID is a financial technology that shows when, where, and on what donations are spent, in real-time, boosting transparency in the charitable sector.
For 2021: Nina Patrick, founder of Memido (Germany)
Memido is a technology that uses urine testing cards and an app to translate results into science-backed advice on hydration, nutrition, immunity, liver, and kidney health.

Both Verónica and Nina each won a prize of €26,000 to invest in their products. The number 26 is significant in Judaism because it has the numerical value of the word for G-d. Those in second and third place each took home a prize of €18,000. 18 is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word for “life”. Introducing the prizes, Chief Rabbi Goldschmidt, President of the CER, explained that G-d’s purpose was for us to bring godliness into the world and to save life and that the technologies being celebrated by the CER Prize did just that. The prize was sponsored by technology investor and science philanthropist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia.

The runners-up for 2020 were David Sakić from Malta for his dementia screening tool BrainTrip, and Effi Baruch from Israel for his educational platform Plethora.
The runners-up for 2021 were the UK’s Cornelius Palm for his migraine care app HappyrHealth, and Israel’s Simon Schwall for OKO Finance, which supports food security by offering insurance to farmers in the developing world.

Yuri Milner, technology investor, science philanthropist, and founder of Breakthrough Foundation, who, with his wife Julia, sponsored the CER Prize, said:
“Julia and I are proud to support the CER prize. Creative technology ideas have immense power to improve people’s lives, and encouraging those ideas is vital.”