iota is the winner of the Luxury Innovation Awards

Last things first – we won the first prize in the 2022 Luxury Innovation Awards – The world’s first global competition for emerging luxury brands and startups developing innovative solutions for the luxury industry.

Almost six months ago we received an email that went directly to our spam, and we happened to ignore it. The email was from Luxury Innovation Group, who suggested that we submit our application to the competition. The competition was planned as the core of a conference in Geneva that addresses issues of the luxury industry, creativity and doing something positive for the environment.

The title was quite bombastic – luxury and startups developing innovative solutions for the luxury industry – and different from our natural realm and environment. This time it wasn’t just about the world of design
as mentioned we won the design and lifestyle category), our competitors also came from the worlds of start-up, NFT and technology.

I often say that iota is a start-up. Our business plan is built on an investment, we are developing a product that doesn’t look like an app but is rather a carpet or pouf, our technology is the most low-tech there is, and we also aim to be global.

We thought about it and ultimately, we decided to go for it. A month or so after we applied, Dorit met the jury over a zoom meeting and introduced the brand and its way of doing things. The next step was the announcement that we were short listed in the 15 final candidates and were invited to participate in the conference in Geneva, where we were told that we would have to present the brand in front of the jury and conference attendees, and they would decide who the winners were.

So we decided to go to Geneva, me (Tal), Chen and Shira, my six-month-old daughter. We participated in the opening Gala, talked to a lot of people, shook a lot of hands and after 48 hours the winners were announced.

We won first place.

I went up on stage with Shira. After four days close to me and in the stroller, after cheers and raised eyebrows, I went on stage with her. I thought she deserved it too. And maybe for me too, to celebrate once again the endless jingle between motherhood and career, between the desire not to give up and to dedicate oneself, to want to eat the whole cake or all the other millions of sentences that everyone knows. To prove to myself and the team of women who work with me every day, that it is possible. And also for Shula, whose second name is social action, and she proves and enables us at any given moment that everything is possible, together, as she told me last week, this is just the beginning.

iota is a method, a way of thinking. It is a platform; it can have diverse translations and incarnations. It is a movement or community that is connected by virtue of a similar thought concept. The conversation of sustainability is present and addressed nowadays. The questions of how we are preserving our planet are asked, and they are important and critical for our future. What believe that social action is an integral part of sustainability, we are the society that surrounds us, and we must take care of it.