The grants for women's employment have been allocated since 1991 and are intended for women entrepreneurs or companies owned by them. The criteria for granting grants are that the projects are owned by women, are managed by them and involve innovation or innovation of some kind.

It is not necessary to have an existing company to apply for a grant and therefore you can apply for projects in the initial stages but also those women can apply for a grant who are developing innovations in existing companies.

Grants can be applied for work on business planning, marketing, product development, design and for labour costs, but no grants are granted for implementation or for starting costs.

This year, 253 applications were submitted and evaluated by an advisory committee in recent weeks. The committee is made up of Herdís Á. Sæmundardóttir, Guðrún Stella Gissurardóttir, Elín Gróa Karlsdóttir and Soffía Gísladóttir.

The highest grant this year, ISK 3 million, was awarded to Kristjana Ingibjörg Jakobsdóttir and Ingibjörg Björgvinsdóttir for the project “New solutions in marine research and pollution monitoring”.

Katla Margrét Aradóttir received a special incentive grant of ISK 1,000,000 for her project Sara, girl with ADHD, which aims to create a tool kit that can be used for girls and adult women with ADHD.

Other exciting projects include the development of an interactive reading program, the development of a smart application for parents who need to watch their children, research on hemp as a building block, a small application that manages information for those with thyroid diseases, the development of Icelandic herb fibres, the development of a node in a pillow, the production of linoilium paint and software that measures carbon sequestration in forests, to name a few.

This time, the sponsors who received a grant to create a business plan were offered participation in the Online Business Workshop. The goal of the workshop, which was supervised by Einar Sigvaldason at Senza, was that participants would develop their business idea and hold a presentation before a jury. One million ISK was offered in reward for the best presentation.

The jury consisted of Guðrún Tinna Ólafsdóttir, Kolfinna Kristínardóttir, María Kristín Gylfadóttir and Sigurlaug Guðrún Jóhannsdóttir.

List of projects that received funding and information about the winners of the Enterprise Centre can be found on the website of the project