NIA among the awardees of Invitech – InnoMax 2021

The focus of the call was sustainability, healthcare, public education, and inclusion. Based on the jury's vote, one of the winners was the Németh Imre Foundation of Orosháza.

Many organisations again took advantage of the innovation grant announced by one of the largest ICT providers. In the 11th Invitech InnoMax competition, the winners included an education platform for energy and climate awareness, an app supporting young people with learning difficulties, and a development enabling school-level drone programming.

While sustainability, healthcare, public education, and inclusion remained in focus, this year — for the first time — support for equipment purchases related to digital education was also included, underscoring its importance over the past year.

The Pro Gemmo Foundation applied with an interactive programme on energy and climate awareness; the UNICEF Hungarian Committee Foundation with DisHelps, an app providing useful information for young people with learning difficulties; and the Németh Imre Foundation with a drone-programming project accessible to school students — all of which received funding.

The jury's vote named NIA (Németh Imre Foundation) the winner. Its goal is to support school communities in environmental awareness, nature and environmental protection, and related education and skills-development programmes.

Two years ago, the foundation set itself the goal of supporting Kossuth Lajos Technikum and Orosháza students with IT equipment. With teacher Melinda Mészáros's help, they have won grants in recent years for EV3 Mindstorms robots, a 3D printer, and currently drones.

Students there — from as young as 14 — build and program robots. The grant funded the purchase of a smaller beginner and a larger advanced drone, launching drone programming at the school, reaching nearly 800 students locally and roughly another 800 across Orosháza.

Enikő Körmöczi, the Foundation's president, said it is crucial to steer students towards an environmentally conscious lifestyle, finding the right channels to reach and engage them. In recent years it has become clear that students enjoy working with modern technology; they have achieved fine results in several competitions and completed multiple environmental projects.

"This is another opportunity for them to use drones in their work. I thank my colleague Melinda Mészáros for actively contributing to the foundation's work and preparing the materials for the successful application. Under her guidance, students gladly and actively take part in competitions," added Enikő Körmöczi.

Members of the distinguished jury were Károly Balázs Solymár, Deputy State Secretary for Digitalisation at the Ministry for Innovation and Technology; László Marton, Deputy CEO for Corporate Sales at Invitech; Klára Molnár, Director of the Effekteam Association; Attila Chikán, CEO of ALTEO Group; and László Krisán, CEO of KAVOSZ Zrt.