Meet the winners of The Heart Open Innovation Awards 2017

Meet the winners of The Heart Open Innovation Awards 2017

At The Heart, our passion is to connect top corporations with innovative startups for powerful joint business development opportunities. It is incredible to think that we just celebrated one year! It has been one year of watching corporations and startups transform business and push the boundaries on innovative partnerships. We have been so thankful to have you along with us this year and we want to take this occasion, together with our partners Ghelamco, ITMAGINATION, Mastercard and Grupa Onet-RAS Polska, to summarize for you the first edition of The Heart Open Innovation Awards 2017.

During the culmination gala, hosted in the business center on the 38th floor of the Warsaw Spire, we celebrated this year by awarding the best companies for their active implementation of innovation and partner relations within the startup ecosystem.

“Today we are in the center of digital transformation. The biggest companies are sometimes not the fastest and they can gain a lot from working with digital pioneers. Within this competition, we wanted to reward those corporations who achieved the highest level of effectiveness in opening corporate structures for innovations created by startups from all over Europe.”- said Tomasz Rudolf, president of The Heart.

The Corporate Committee, who selected the winners, was composed of representatives from several dozen dynamically active corporations in the startup ecosystem. The winners were selected from the following five categories: Organization, Leader, Corporate Investor, Cooperation and Initiative. An additional prize, „Startup’s Choice”, was granted based on the votes from startups.

“What we could observe during this competition is a sign of corporate readiness for the changes that can be brought by young technology companies.” - noted Emil Kaminski, Innovation Manager at Ghelamco Poland.

“Perhaps the most important distinction was the special award that was given by the startups,” - said Aleksander Naganowski, Business Development Director at Mastercard. This award was given by Magda Jagieło from the Startup Poland Foundation, and the statuette was received by Joanna Bruździak-Maleszewska from Orange Polska.

Without further ado, the winners of „The Heart Innovation Awards 2017” were:

1. Organization — Alior Bank
   The Organization prize was awarded, among others, to the Dronn project created with VoicePIN, HAIZ. It was launched in partnership with OneWay, for the use of virtual mirrors among different branches, and was created in cooperation with Abyss Glass. In addition to the Dronn project, Alior Bank is a partner of the Huge Thing acceleration program.
   
   
2. Leader — Ewa Sadowska, UPC
   For several years, Ewa Sadowska has led THINK BIG UPC Biznes Program designed to address entrepreneurs who develop their businesses based on new technologies. This year, she was also responsible for the Digital Imagination Challenge, addressed to social innovators.
   
   
3. Corporate Investor — NEUCA
   Neuca, has been dynamically operating on the health market, and was appreciated, among others, for their investment in Diabdis projects- an innovative solution that provides daily support for people with diabetes, as well as, their incredible contributions to Orthopedic — a modern e-commerce solution that facilitates patients’ access to orthopedic and rehabilitation equipment.
   
   
4. Collaborative Innovation — PKO Bank Polski i ZenCard
   PKO Bank Polski blazed the trail as the first Polish financial institution to acquire a startup. The acquired ZenCard offers a loyalty system connected to payment terminals. In mid-2017, ZenCard was fully integrated into the network of eService terminals and has two major projects with nationwide retail chains. This cooperation between PKO Bank Polski and ZenCard has helped to develop an international position for this innovative startup.
   
   
5. Initiative — Huge Thing powered by Alior Bank
   Huge Thing is a program in which startups can receive up to 200,000PLN funding and gain the opportunity to expand their knowledge in the field of business management. The key elements of the accelerator are the periodic workshops with mentors from Alior Bank. Their aim is to develop the project in terms of possible implementation in the bank, and maximize the use of the product.
   
   
6. Special Award “Startups’ Choice” — Orange
   The “Startups Choice” award winner, as selected by startups, has been actively supporting young technology companies for several years through the international Orange Fab acceleration program. Selected projects are offered an opportunity to receive, not only implementation support in the organization, but also business partnerships, as well as, foreign promotion (this includes participation in the Viva Technology fair in France).