Plus X Award presents special awards at InnoVario 2017
Four companies receive awards from the hands of the prominent jury.
Yesterday saw the end of InnoVario, the insurance industry's start-up trade fair, held for the third time. Around 350 visitors, among them numerous top decision-makers in the insurance sector, again travelled to the Kameha Grand Hotel in Bonn this year and got to know the exhibiting start-ups in personal conversations, keynotes and workshops.
One of the highlights of this year's InnoVario 2017 took place on the evening of the first day. The Plus X Award staged a prize-giving within InnoVario for the presentation of the Most Innovative Brand Award in the product group “insurance” and of three special awards.
Donat Brandt, President of the Plus X Award, used his opening speech to congratulate Prof. Dr Fred Wagner and his team from V.E.R.S. Leipzig on the excellent organisation and smooth running of this, the third InnoVario. Brandt also presented the first award of the evening. Dr Maslaton received the golden trophy for the award “Most Innovative Brand 2017” in the product group “insurance” on behalf of ARAG AG.
“We are enormously pleased about this great award. ARAG is capable of entrepreneurial thinking. Many things had gathered dust – we have actually changed everything, and we are fair to our customers in doing so. We are already looking forward to the new year, because we still have a few ideas,” said Dr Maslaton.
Donat Brandt then presented the jury panel formed specially for InnoVario, consisting of Prof. Dr Fred Wagner, who also took the chair of the panel, Peter Bornschein (Devolo AG), Michael Mayr (iic solutions GmbH), Peter Borschers (Allianz X) and Martin Gräfer (board member, Die Bayerische).
After a more than informative and entertaining laudation, the latter also presented the first InnoVario special award of the evening.
The award “Start-up of the year B2B” went to the Düsseldorf company COGNIGY. Sascha Poggemann (COO) received the prize on stage for his team on behalf of the omni-channel AI provider, which will open a branch in Silicon Valley next year, and thanked the jurors warmly for the recognition by the world's largest innovation prize.
The award “Start-up of the year B2C” went to the Berlin online insurer GETSURANCE. Head of marketing Jasper Koch received the certificate from the hands of Martin Gräfer, who had tested GETSURANCE intensively and predicts enormous potential for the business model, and gave thanks for this distinguished award so soon after the product launch just six months earlier.
The last prize of the evening was presented by Peter Bornschein, a long-standing jury member of the Plus X Award and currently Director International Sales at Devolo AG. His fascinating laudation dealt with the subject of artificial intelligence, and so it was no surprise that the winner also came from the AI industry – PRECIRE. COO Martin Harasim received the award “Service provider of the year” for the innovation leader in speech analysis technology from Aachen.
“We were delighted when V.E.R.S. Leipzig approached us about a year ago with the request to hold the Plus X Award at InnoVario. As a recognised institution and quality seal for innovation, we naturally feel particularly at home here at InnoVario, given all the exciting, creative start-ups whose DNA contains innovation and the courage to take new paths,” says Donat Brandt, President of the Plus X Award.
To the applause of numerous spectators, Donat Brandt called all the winners and jurors onto the stage for a group photo, thus closing the first day of InnoVario 2017.