An international jury established to evaluate nominees for Baltic Assembly (BA) prizes gathered at the Latvian Parliament, the Saeima, on September 27, voting to award this year’s science prize to Maija Dambrova for her work in the field of energy metabolism and her contributions toward researching the mechanism of effectiveness of the metabolic agent Mildronate. The BA literature prize will go to the Lithuanian poet, writer, literary critic, playwright and translator Sigitas Parulskis for his novel “Darkness and Company” and for two collections of essays, “Wanting Something Tender Before Dying” and “The Fangs of My Conviction.

The Latvian audio-technology company Sonarworks has found EUR 700,000 in its third round of investments, thus becoming one of Latvia’s most popular start-ups in the eyes of investors. Total investments at the company have already reached EUR 1.5 million.

According to the European Innovation Scoreboard, the Regional Innovation Scoreboard and the Innobarometer of the European Comission, Latvia has become the “fastest growing innovator”.

Elviss Straupenieks graduated from Rainis 6th High School in Liepāja this year, but unlike other graduates, he is just 17 years old and already running his own business – Elviss is the founder, owner, and head of the AirBoard startup. AirBoard is the world’s smallest manned aircraft.

In the national finals of the Creative Business Cup, where four companies competed against one another to represent Latvia at the world’s leading competition for creative industries, the company Vividly came out on top. Vividly, which offers virtual reality solutions in architecture, will represent Latvia at the Creative Business Cup in Copenhagen this fall.

The winner of the 2015 Global Startup Battle – Tactile Eyesight, continues its cooperation with Mass Portal Ltd. in the creation of tactile books.

In July 2014, AirDog launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise $200,000 for its new, self-titled auto-follow drone for GoPro camera.

Researchers at the Institute of Organic Synthesis have discovered a substance that could be used to fight cancer and cancer metastases.

Out of 25000 participants from 60 countries, "Tactile Eyesight's" idea was recognized as the best one in the Great in the Making category.