December / , 2025

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Aerial view of community in Greenland - International Polar Foundation

Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award Ceremony

/ - EFTA House

The winner of the 2025 Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award will be announced on Tuesday, December 2nd during the 16th Arctic Futures Symposium.

Gobmi founders holding their award

Consisting of 7500 Euros, the Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award aims to help a young entrepreneur or startup based in the Arctic advance in their operations.

A representative from the winning startup will be invited to attend the Arctic Futures Symposium in-person to receive the prestigious award during a ceremony hosted by the Trân Family, the International Polar Foundation, and a representative of the jury.

The winner will also take part in a panel discussion during the symposium.

Separate registration is not required to be present at this ceremony as it is part of the main symposium program.

Submissions:

Candidates were asked to submit the following:

  • A statement (max. 1000 words) describing the project, its objectives, its expected impact, the methodology the applicants use, and the means for realisation (human resources, hardware, software, etc.)
  • A statement (max. 500 words) describing how the project will directly benefit the Arctic community where it will be carried out. If this benefit can be quantified in some way, it would be of benefit for your application.
  • A statement (max. 200 words) describing the scalability of the project in the Arctic region or elsewhere.

Evaluation

A jury comprised of experts in innovation and entrepreneurship graded the applications based on the following five criteria:

  • How environmentally sustainable the business is.
  • To what extent the business helps the Arctic community where it is based and the broader Arctic (social sustainability).
  • How innovative the business idea or model is.
  • How mature the business is (scalability potential, cross-border expansion).
  • To what extent the Laurance Trân Arctic Futures Award will help the business.

Eligibility criteria

  • The business must be legally registered and have its primary operations in at least one of the Arctic regions specified below*.
  • The primary applicant (CEO / founder of the business) must be no older than 35 years of age on Friday, September 26th, 2025 - the date by which applications must be submitted to the Arctic Futures Award Secretariat.
  • The project should have enough financing for realisation with the funding from the award, and any complementary funds available to them.
  • The business must be a novel startup. It cannot be a subsidiary or spin-off of a larger well-established company or firm.
  • Applicants from previous years who did not win the award are encouraged to re-apply.
  • Previous Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award winners are not eligible to re-apply for the award. However, previous winners may apply for the award again under a completely different project from the one for which they initially won the award.

The International Polar Foundation and the Trân Family would like to recognise the Director of the Arctic Economic Council Mads Frederiksen, the Secretary General of the Arctic Mayors Forum Patti Bruns, and the members of the jury for taking time out of their busy schedules to assist with the grading of candidates for this award. We would also like to thank the Arctic Futures Symposium partners for helping to spread the word about this initiative.

If you are already thinking about applying for the 2026 Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award, you may download the full application instructions at the bottom of this page.

Deadline for applications for the 2026 Prize will be Friday, September 25th, 2026 at 11:59 PM Hawaii–Aleutian Time.

Past winners

2022 - Containing Greens

2023 - Gobmi

2024 - Siu-Tsiu

*Applicants must have their business legally registered and have its primary operations in at least one of the following regions: