Yesterday it once again became clear that innovation is still alive and well in the Netherlands. With 1250 participating concepts across various industries, over 25000 votes and 700 visitors and innovation enthusiasts, the fifth edition of the Accenture Innovation Awards was a big success. The coverage of the event via Twitter (#AIA11) even made it to the number 1 trending topic with over 550 tweets.

The Innovation Awards honors high performance in the field of innovation, uniting and stimulating innovators in the Netherlands. Accenture Netherlands Banking lead, and moderator of the event, Barend van Doorn welcomed the audience with an introduction of the story behind the ‘Blue Tulip’ and introduced the first of three key note speakers of the day; former CEO of Shell: Jeroen van der Veer. In the inspiring presentation he addressed the need for a society to innovate, stating that governments have to stimulate -not finance- innovation and restore the link of confidence between governments, corporations and citizens. With the keynote titled “Game Changers”,  Accenture’s Global Innovation Lead Wouter Koetzier discussed this year’s participating concepts and their potential to have a breakthrough impact through 3 main trends in innovation to lead to Game Changers: Sustainability, Social and Digital. During the presentation he stated that innovation is the driving force for strong competitiveness, long-term profit and growth.

Besides these three game changing directions he pointed out a new topic in Innovation – “frugal” Innovation. Meaning the need to develop products for 10% of current cost price, to address the upcoming middle class in India, China, Brazil etc. This asks for totally new ways of Innovation. The last key note speaker was Internet Serial Entrepreneur and founder of The Next Web Conference Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

Winners AIA11
I played a role as moderator in the Media, Communication & High Tech session in the afternoon. The diversity among the impressive list of nominees shows that there is a clear trend towards more innovation. Many of the high quality concepts have the potential to be truly groundbreaking. During the event the nominated registrations pitched their concept and tried to convince the judges that their idea is the most innovative, viable and game changing. The six winners of the AIA11 Jury awards are:

• Repudo: an app to drop various kinds of digital media at any physical location.
• Ohpen: an online asset management tool for investment funds.
• Roadled: an innovative sustainable road light solution.
• Project Carebro: a new system which allows people with a physical handicap to perform activities and functions independently, by using their brainwaves.
• Qiy Foundation: an independent and secure platform on which individuals can create their own digital identity.
• Ecofont software: software for printing ’sustainable’ fonts with holes to save ink toner and reduce printing costs

The public’s choice awards 2011 for the concepts with the most votes via the website www.innovation-awards.nl are:

• Roamler: a unique mobile workforce which allows companies to carry out small assignments throughout the country
• Direct Openen in 20 minuten: a service by ING Bank to open a bank account within 20 minutes.
• Orphiro: an electric motorcycle for sustainable and comfortable driving.
• Open HealthHub: a cloud solution for data and services in healthcare.
• Rvarium Fire-Squid: a new kind of lightweight fire extuinguisher.

On behalf of Accenture, I would like to congratulate all winning concepts and thank the professional juries and presenters for their inspirational and innovative views and opinions. Furthermore, I would like to thanks the sponsors and contributors who made this event an overwhelming success.

To get a good impression of the evening, please click on the video or following pictures to view the full size image. The pictures of the winners can be viewed on www.innovation-awards.nl