The jury was impressed by the entrepreneurial attitudes and achievements of Abdellah: he started the valorisation of his research results on environmental monitoring at an early stage (2006) at the Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel, through the licensing of sound measurement instrumentation in cooperation with INDUTEC (the interface between the Engineering Brussels colleges and the economic world). Very generously, he incorporated entrepreneurship into the curriculum for industrial engineers (2009). He became a university professor at the VUB's ETRO (Electronics and Informatics) department in 2014 and started his own spin-off company, Lumency - Partnering in Smart Cities in 2016.
As a first-generation Moroccan immigrant, he was automatically pushed to follow professional education like all other immigrant students of his generation (late 80s). As a self-made man, he successively became an industrial and later an academic engineer. Moreover, his social engagement for the immigrant Moroccan community, which he represents in the local diversity council, remains intact. Recently he has taken the initiative to invest in sustainable technology transfer between Belgium and Morocco. It is exactly this multifaceted career that was taken into consideration by the jury and the reason they selected Abdellah Touhafi as the recipient of the European CIDIC Award.
He receives the award together with Katoen Natie Estonia (for investments in Tallinn Harbour), Skeleton Technologies (ultra-capacitors, innovative SME), and Lainergie (entrepreneurial start-up on oceanic wave energy harvesting).
CIDIC, the European Centre for Economic, Academic and Cultural Diplomacy organised a three-day diplomatic mission to Tallinn, in the framework of the Estonian Presidency of the European Council. For VUB, Prof. Jan Cornelis, Pro Vice-rector and Cultural Attache of CIDIC, as well as Prof. Abdellah Touhafi, Prof. Nicolay Dentchev and Prof. Nikos Deligiannis participated. New contacts and collaboration perspectives have been established with the University of Tallinn and the Technical University of Tallinn (both UNICA partners) in the presence of the Rectors.