The winning teams have now been chosen for the City of Munich's 2020 Innovation Award. Since startups and innovative ideas were sought in several categories, four award winners were selected. The "Avaya Happiness Index" project received the top prize in the category "Blockchain - Solution Technology for Municipal Administration?" The company "medSNS" won in the category "Preclinical Patient Management through Reliable Initial Assessment."Earth Is Sexy" won the award for "Gamification – playful motivation of municipal employees to adopt energy-saving behavior at work." And the startup "Twostay" received the prize for "Climate-Neutral Munich 2030/2035."
The City of Munich's Innovation Prize was awarded for the third time this year. The aim of this competition is to open the city administration to innovation. Mayor Katrin Habenschaden commented:
"Innovation is crucial for Munich as a business location and thus for the prosperity of our city. As the state capital, we must therefore promote startups and imaginative entrepreneurship and create a climate in which innovations can thrive. With the Innovation Award, we are bringing the ideas of tomorrow into the city administration today. The people of Munich also benefit from this."
The winning teams of participating startups will be able to test and further develop their innovative solutions to the aforementioned urban issues in a real urban environment. They will be accompanied by a team from the city administration and one of the four cooperating Munich entrepreneurship centers (UnternehmerTUM, Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, LMU Entrepreneurship Center and Founders@UniBW).
Innovation Award 2020: The four winning teams
On the subject In the "Climate-Neutral Munich 2030/2035" competition, the Munich city administration is seeking innovative solutions to support Munich's climate protection goals. The city administration aims to become climate-neutral by 2030 and the entire city by 2035. The winner is the Munich startup Twostay with its innovative solution approach, which has high implementation potential. Twostay transforms empty bars or restaurants into attractive, flexibly rentable spaces at times when they are not in operation Coworking-areas. The founders Cecilia Chiolerio and Dorothea Haider had launched their business idea in 2019.
Clemens Baumgärtner, Head of the Department of Labor and Economic Affairs:
"The Twostay concept takes the coworking concept to the next level. This innovative space utilization model offers a suitable answer to the shortage of space while also conserving resources, as each use no longer requires its own space and new construction can be avoided."
The jury also appreciated the scalability of the idea and the opportunity to revitalize different neighborhoods through the multiple use of otherwise unused spaces. The Munich Competence team for cultural and creative industries, which has been promoting temporary use for creative industries for over five years and networking the stakeholders involved, will provide the team with technical support and guidance during the co-creation phase and introduce them to the city administration.
Conserve resources playfully
The next challenge of the 2020 Innovation Award also focuses on climate protection. The City of Munich sought gamification ideas to playfully motivate municipal employees to adopt energy-saving behavior at work. More conscious user behavior at work is intended to reduce energy consumption and contribute to climate protection. The winner of this category is computer science student Johannes Schliephake with his smartphone app "Earth Is SexyThe app is already available and is still being adapted for the test phase in Munich's city administration. Divided into three sections: "Fact Collection," "Community," and "Challenges," the app offers important background information and a playful exploration of energy efficiency and climate protection.
"The competition entry 'Earth Is Sexy' convinced the jury with its appealing design, clever content, and motivating elements. By using the mobile app, we want to make an important contribution to climate-neutral city administration,"
explains city school councilor Beatrix Zurek the decision.
Targeted patient management
For the third challenge, the Munich Clinic sought a solution to relieve the burden on the emergency room. In addition to acute emergencies, the emergency rooms of Munich hospitals see a large number of patients every day who do not require time-critical treatment, some of whom wait several hours for a medical assessment. The goal is to guide these patients toward the optimal treatment path for their symptoms with a reliable initial assessment, while simultaneously relieving the burden on the emergency rooms.
The best solution for this was developed MedsnsThe interdisciplinary team impressed with its concept for an emergency screening questionnaire. To make the idea suitable for use in the emergency rooms of the Munich Clinic, the team is receiving funding through an Entrepreneurship Center program.
Dr. Axel Fischer, Chairman of the Management Board of the Munich Clinic:
"Even though this approach cannot yet be tested in practice within the framework of the innovation competition, the Munich Clinic will continue to pursue the goal of optimizing patient management with the help of digital applications."
Blockchain for the city
The Bavarian capital also wanted to explore whether blockchain could be a suitable technology for municipal administration. The innovation award in this category went to the Avaya Happiness Index. Their concept aims to improve citizen satisfaction with public administration services. The solution incorporates a wide variety of communication channels and uses blockchain technology as well as approaches from artificial intelligence (AI).
IT consultant Thomas Bönig commented:
“In this way, municipal services can be further developed in a targeted and user-oriented manner.”
The competition will also take place in 2021.
