Dr. Athanasios Dimoulas, Research Director at the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of NCSR DEMOKRITOS (http://www.ims.demokritos.gr/ims_persprofile.php?person=4&lang=en) received a prestigious award from the European Research Council (ERC) under the ERC-Proof-of-Concept program (https://erc.europa.eu/funding/proof-concept). As the principle investigator of the GR-GATE project, Dr. Dimoulas received funding for the valorization of research results and the scaling-up of novel energy efficient nanoelectronic device technologies which could benefit integrated circuits typically used in mainstream microprocessors. The main innovation is the integration of a graphene layer in the gate of transistors which allows them to switch on at lower voltages. The new technology is expected to impact the energy autonomy, without compromise in performance, of mobile internet devices including smartphones and other “smart” objects used in the rapidly emerging Internet of Things (IoT).