Enterprise Asia is pleased to honour 52 award recipients at the International Innovation Awards 2021. Spearheading the Innovation Revolution, the International Innovation Awards which aims to create an innovation ecosystem for enterprises, is held annually to recognise outstanding innovations across the globe.
The 2021 Global Innovation Index has shown that despite the massive impact of the pandemic, many companies have shown remarkable resilience – especially those that have embraced digitalisation, technology and innovation. It has shown that the spending growth of R&D in 2019 at 8.5% has successfully contributed to the global innovation ecosystem building on pre-crisis performance in 2020.
This year’s awardees demonstrated the role of innovation in accelerating growth, efficiency and inclusiveness which is in line with the objective of the award recognition program. The awards not only provide a global platform for enterprises to showcase their innovations but also encourage organisations to continue investing in innovation to pave the path towards a better and sustainable future.
The award drew an exceptional mix of submissions from various industries and countries such as Brazil, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom, the United States of America. 52 emerged as victors from the 260 applications through undergoing a rigorous evaluation process by a jury of prominent judges across three categories: Product, Service & Solution and Organisation & Culture.
“To best prepare our organisations for IR 4.0, we must inculcate greater innovation within our organisations. We must empower our people to constantly innovate and build a culture of innovation within our respective companies. Institutionalise it, so that innovation becomes all-permeating within our organisations rather than a job function or reaction to market forces. Hence, the key is not just changing the way we do business but changing our mindset as well,” Richard Tsang, President of Enterprise Asia, stated in his welcome address.
Among the notable recipients of the ‘InnoCube’ under the Product Category include CYBERDYNE Inc. from Japan with its Wearable Cyborg HAL, the world’s first wearable cyborg that uses brain waves to command movements, and E.SUN Commercial Bank, Ltd. From Taiwan with E.SUN Smart FX Service, which is a comprehensive FX service with anti-fraud functions embedded in its transactions.
Esteemed winners under the Service & Solution Category are SHOPLINE from Taiwan with SHOPLINE Social Commerce, a full-featured platform that tailors all-in-one commerce solutions for every business type, and Ambiq from United States of America with its Ultra-low Power Processor Solutions for IoT Endpoint Devices, which is the most energy-efficient sensor processing solution in the market.
Prominent awardees under the Organisation & Culture Category include Dubai Police with Dubai Police Next 50 Innovation Hub, a transformation initiative to redesign the Dubai Police innovation ecosystem, and Sofokus from Finland with Better Monday®, which is an organism management system that measures employee happiness in the workplace to achieve a happiness-oriented company culture.
Prior to the International Innovation Awards, the International Innovation Summit 2021 was held during the day. Themed “Unleash Your Organisation’s Superpower Innovation”, the virtual summit aimed to encourage organisations to tap into their inner innovation powers to innovate in a way that is profitable, creates value and captures customers’ interests.
Over 300 innovation experts, industry leaders and policymakers across the globe gathered at the summit to share and exchange the latest insights on conquering uncertainties and exploring the unknown for organisations to innovate, grow, and evolve.
At the Summit’s opening, Enterprise Asia Chairman Dr. Fong Chan Onn expressed that, “Organisations must be courageous to explore the uncertainty to innovate and create. As our journeys grow and evolve, so must our ideas. Improving the ability to innovate has become vital to keeping up with the times.”
Among the keynote speakers is Josemaria Siota, Executive Director of IESE Business School, who covered the topic of “Corporate-startup innovations in in deep tech: Challenges, Opportunities, and Trends”. Siota shared invaluable insights on establishing a start-up mindset and culture to develop new technologies and offerings and keep organisations on the right track.
Other speakers include Alexey Semeney, CEO & Founder, DevTeam.Space; Andy Chun, Regional Director & Technology Innovation of Prudential Corporation Asia; Akina Ho, Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation at Great Eagle HK; Praveen Lala, Global Director of Delivery, Process, and Operations of GE Digital; Raushida Vasaiwala, General Manager of APAC at Celtra; Makoto Shibata, Head of FINOLAB & Chief Community Officer of FINOLAB INC.; Guy Parsonage, Partner & Experience Consulting Leader of PwC Experience Centre, Hong Kong; Ivana Bartoletti, Global Data Privacy Officer of Wipro and Founder of Women Leading in AI network; William De Vos, Managing Director APAC of Board Of Innovation; Dr. Geoffrey Yuen, Chief Scientist at Parallel Chain; with Gary Ng, Co-Founder & CEO at viAct, and Martin Daffner, Founder & Innovation Architect and Corporate Innovation Coach of INNOBRIX, as the moderator.
The International Innovation Awards and International Innovation Summit are organised annually by Enterprise Asia, Asia’s largest non-governmental organisation for entrepreneurship and is supported by the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore, Canada-ASEAN Business Council (CABC), Malaysian Alliance of Corporate Directors, Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC), Malaysian-Thai Chamber of Commerce, National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Development (NATEC) Vietnam, National Science and Technology Development Agency Thailand, OAV – German Asia-Pacific Business Association, Singapore Thai Chamber of Commerce (STCC), The Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (HK and Macau) Limited (MAYCHAM). PR Newswire as the official press release distributor partner, and 3Particle as the official production partner. AsianNGO, Bangkok Post, Biz Hub Vietnam, BusinessWorld, Commercial Times, DigiconAsia, Hong Kong Economic Times, Jumpstart, Kumparan, Nikkei Asia, SME and Viet Nam News as the official media partners.
