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Aerial view of community in Greenland - International Polar Foundation

Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award

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Are you a young entrepreneur based in the Arctic looking to get a boost for your business?

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 bring their fledgling business to the next level.

A representative from the winning startup will be invited to attend the Arctic Futures Symposium in person to receive the award and present their project during a panel discussion focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship.

What candidates submit

Candidates are 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

Who is eligible?

  • 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 were to 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 than the one for which they 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 award selection committee 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 2025 Laurence Trân Arctic Futures Award, you may download the full application instructions at the bottom of this page.

The 2025 call will open ion Monday, May 5th and close on Friday, September 26th.

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: