Belgium awarded US CTA Innovation Award at CES 2023

BRUSSELS: Belgium is being honored today with the 2023 CTA Innovation Champions Award at the 2023 CES trade show, the most influential tech event in the world.

Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (cta.tech), the U.S. trade association representing the $505 billion U.S. consumer technology industry said: “It is a pleasure to honor Belgium as an Innovation Champion at CES 2023. Belgium has embraced policies that unleash innovation and empower the entrepreneurs creating technologies that improve the lives of millions,” said Gary Shapiro, CEO and president, CTA.” Congratulations to Belgium!”

CTA, the largest U.S. tech trade association and organizers of the CES trade show, conducted a comparative analysis of 38 countries and the European Union. The Scorecard uses several objective criteria including: whether governments welcome disruptive business models and technologies including the sharing economy and self-driving vehicles; how friendly their tax systems are; how well they protect the environment; and issues of perennial importance such as broadband speed and cost. The Scorecard also gauges countries on diversity; the ratio of female-to-male employees in the workplace in key age demographics; immigrants as a share of the national population; and freedom of thought and expression.

Ambassador Sleeuwagen, Consul général of Belgium to the United States said: “I’m very pleased to be here today to accept the Innovation Champions Award from the CTA. This is a wonderful opportunity to recognize Tech Innovation “Made in Belgium” that is combining their resources and their creative thinking to come up with solutions to some of the issues and problems that people in the USA and around the world are most concerned about.

My sincere gratitude to all for the tremendous ongoing encouragements at this huge platform of recognition. We look much forward to continuing our strong relationship with the American tech industry and to strengthen our relationship with the CTA and your dedicated teams.”

Belgian startups and scale-ups raised 2 billion EUR in fresh capital in 2022, according to the Business Intelligence department of finance&invest.brussels “against a backdrop of a difficult and uncertain macroeconomic context.”