Go Ignite, an alliance of the world’s leading telcos including Orange, Deutsche Telekom, Singtel and Telefonica, announced the winners on Sept. 11 of the second global search for startups that offer the most innovative solutions for three key technologies including Consumer Experience Artificial Intelligence, Connected Homes, and Internet of Things (IoT) Cyber Security.
Consumer Experience AI refers to the use of new technology to provide personalized or new forms of customer support. Connected Homes are solutions that use software and/or hardware to automate and remotely control home appliances with ease, while IoT Security leverages new technologies to keep smart vehicles, homes and cities safe.
The winners include Sparkcognition and NanoLock Security for IoT Cyber Security; Cujo and Vayyar Imaging for Connected Homes, and SafeToNet for Consumer Experience AI. The startups will have the opportunity to form business partnerships with the four telcos and tap into the alliance partners’ collective mobile subscriber base of over 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers across five continents.
Axel Menneking, managing director of Deutsche Telekom’s hub:raum, said the telco alliance received “numerous applications from strong teams.” The five winners, he said, were able to “convince us with their ideas on artificial intelligence and security issues. The topics range from helping to protect children from bullying, protect critical infrastructure, and secure management platforms. I'm sure these teams will be doing good pilots with us and the other three telecom companies.”
The winners are attending a two-day workshop in Madrid to help them refine their solutions and sharpen their business strategies. In addition, each start-up will receive support including access to mentoring and expertise, co-working space and invitations to community events and networking opportunities.
“For us and our partners we have a firm belief that working collectively and in an open manner with the start-up community is critical to accelerate our innovation in these three key areas,” said Bertrand Rojat, Deputy Director of Orange’s Technocentre. “These are exciting times and we are delighted to be working with these ‘scale-ups’ to jointly deliver something truly remarkable to our customers.”
Go Ignite is an alliance aimed at connecting the start-up ecosystems across Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. The Go Ignite global call for start-ups encourages teams world-wide to enter their projects into any one of the categories identified by the alliance to be of strategic interest.
“This marks the continuation of our strong support in working with startups and other telcos to find and grow the next disruptive idea,” said Mrs. Ana Segurado, Global General Director, Telefónica Open Future. “It´s open innovation initiatives built with partners such as Go Ignite that truly creates the right framework to develop the business of the startups.”