---
title: iTraceiT Wins Wallonia Starter Business Award 2026
description: iTraceiT wins the Wallonia Starter Business Award, recognising its innovation, international growth, traceability journey from Wallonia to global markets.
image: https://landing.itraceit.io/hubfs/ItraceiT/Website/DSC03171.jpg
---
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# From Wallonia to the world
## iTraceiT receives the Wallonia Starter Business Award 2026
iTraceiT has received the Wallonia Starter Business Award, marking an important milestone in a journey that began in Wallonia and continues to grow across international markets.
On 17 September, iTraceiT received the **Wallonia Starter Business Award 2026** during the Wallonia International Business Awards, organised by the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency (AWEX) at Ecolys in Namur.
The biennial awards celebrate companies contributing to Wallonia's international economic presence through innovation, investment and growth beyond its borders. The Starter Business category focuses specifically on young companies combining innovation with international potential.
For iTraceiT, the recognition comes at an important point in a journey that started with an idea and has since developed into an international traceability platform.
As CEO and co-founder **Guy De Smet** recalled while accepting the award, the story began simply: two friends in a garden, looking at a real market need and believing there had to be a better way to address it.
That idea soon brought four founders together around a shared project: iTraceiT.
## Building a clearer path for supply chain information
Products rarely have simple stories.
By the time a finished product reaches its destination, it may have crossed countries, changed hands several times, undergone multiple transformations, and accumulated information across different organisations and systems.
**The challenge is not simply generating that information. It is making sure it can remain connected to the product throughout its journey.**
This is the problem iTraceiT was created to address.
The platform enables organisations to capture and structure product and supply chain information as materials move from origin through successive transformations and transactions. Rather than replacing every system already operating within a value chain, iTraceiT provides an [interoperable traceability infrastructure](https://itraceit.io/our-technology?hsLang=en) through which information can be connected, verified and carried forward.
Behind the technology is a much simpler ambition: **to give people access to the real story behind a product.**
Traceability therefore becomes more than a record of where something came from. It creates continuity between origin, transformation, certification and the final product, giving businesses the information they need to substantiate what they communicate to partners, regulators and consumers.
## From a Walloon idea to international growth
What began in Wallonia has progressively developed far beyond Belgium.
Since its beginnings in 2021, iTraceiT has:
Expanded its activity across **four continents and more than 150 clients**.
More than **260,000 lots have now been traced through iTraceiT.**
**Over 1.1 million API interactions** with companies' existing digital environments.
These figures represent more than platform activity.
**They show traceability becoming part of day-to-day operations:** information being structured, exchanged and carried forward as products move through increasingly [complex value chains.](https://itraceit.io/industries?hsLang=en)
Expanding internationally has involved more than increasing platform adoption. It has meant **getting closer to the organisations and people operating at different points of those supply chains.**
## International growth is built on the ground
During his acceptance speech, Guy reflected on iTraceiT's experiences in markets including **Sri Lanka, Botswana and Angola**.
Working closer to the beginning of global supply chains and entering unfamiliar markets initially came with a degree of apprehension.
The experience proved different.
> **“I found myself surrounded by incredible collaborators who made things easier and who understand the complexities, not only of Belgium, but also the local complexities.”**
Those relationships have become an important part of iTraceiT's international development.
Technology can provide the infrastructure through which traceability information moves. Making that infrastructure work in practice also requires understanding how industries operate locally, how different actors participate in the value chain, and how international expectations interact with realities on the ground.
## Rediscovering Wallonia from abroad
In both his [**AWEX interview**](https://vimeo.com/1224619139/99eb41955b) and his acceptance speech, Guy reflected on how working internationally strengthened his pride in being Belgian and Walloon.
From its position at the heart of Europe, **Wallonia brings together technical expertise, exposure to an evolving European regulatory environment and an openness to international collaboration**. For iTraceiT, those foundations have accompanied a technology designed from the outset to operate across borders.
But the company's Walloon roots are not only about where the technology was developed.
They are also about the ecosystem that helped **turn an idea into a company.**
From its early stages, the company has been supported by organisations and individuals willing to back that idea and help it develop.
That journey has included **Wallonie Entreprendre**, early supporters and investors, people who backed iTraceiT through its **Spreds crowdfunding campaign**, **BAN Flanders**, and a growing network of clients, partners, consultants and collaborators.
That collective dimension was also highlighted by **Laurence Glautier, Managing Director of WE International**, when presenting the award. She described the recognition as acknowledging iTraceiT's commitment to international development and its willingness to innovate, evolve and pursue opportunities in challenging environments.
During his acceptance speech, Guy returned to a principle that has shaped iTraceiT's development: **an idea only becomes meaningful through execution, and execution is rarely achieved alone.**
## From credibility to authority
The Wallonia Starter Business Award is an opportunity to recognise what has already been built, but also the exciting plans for the future.
In his [AWEX interview](https://vimeo.com/1224619139/99eb41955b), iTraceiT’s CEO described that ambition in a few words:
> **“Our ambition is to move from credibility to authority.”**
That next phase builds on the foundations established over the past years: technology developed and tested in real supply chains, a growing international footprint, relationships across different stages of production and transformation, and an increasing volume of traceability information moving through the platform.
For Guy, the future lies in making reliable information travel all the way from producer to consumer, serving regulatory requirements while also giving people greater confidence in what stands behind the products they buy.
The Wallonia Starter Business Award gives us an opportunity to look back at how far iTraceiT has already travelled.
And, more importantly, to look ahead at where we take it next.
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Our sincere thanks go to **AWEX** and everyone behind the Wallonia International Business Awards for this recognition and for creating a platform that celebrates Walloon companies building their presence internationally.
We are equally grateful to [Wallonie Entreprendre](https://www.wallonie-entreprendre.be/fr/) and WE International, [BAN Flanders](https://ban.be/en/), our [Spreds](https://www.spreds.com/en) community, our clients, partners and collaborators, and everyone who has contributed to the journey so far.
Above all, this recognition belongs to the people behindiTraceiT and [IT Place](https://itplace.com/) who continue to turn the original idea into something tangible every day.
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