Member Article

NTT DATA UK names GeoSpock as winner of Open Innovation Contest

Business and technology consultancy NTT DATA UK has announced GeoSpock as the winner of the UK regional heat of its global Open Innovation Contest. The spatial big data start-up will now progress to the Grand Finale, hosted at NTT DATA’s global headquarters in Tokyo in March, to compete to be named overall champion, and win the grand prize of a three-month NTT DATA sponsored programme of intensive business development and an opportunity to break into the highly innovative Japanese technology market.

GeoSpock was chosen as the UK winner thanks to its unique power to discover new insights in data. The products have already been deployed with several customers. The judges agreed that the start-up had huge potential to drive a hyper-connected future.

In addition, Kalypton, a cost reduction technology for the financial services industry, was awarded the Sustainability Award. The Judge’s Award was given to Xetal.nv, the creators of innovative mapping technology to track people and assets in a range of applications.

This is the ninth running of NTT DATA’s Open Innovation Contest, which seeks to find and support businesses that can create solutions to solve one of seven global challenges incorporating healthcare and life sciences; finance, Insurance and payments; automotive and IoT, RPA and back office; storefront and digital marketing; data distribution; and disruptive social innovation. The regional contests are held in 20 cities across 18 countries, with the grand finalists selected for their potential to mobilise like-minded innovative start-ups and major corporations all over the world.

The other UK finalists were Elemendar, an AI start-up that that deciphers cyber threat reports; Exate Technology, a specialist in data protection technology; Hu:toma AI, an AI-powered ‘conversational’ search platform; Minut, a smart home security system; Rainbird, an AI-enabled automated decision making platform; and Squirro, a modern cognitive insights engine that uses predictive analysis and machine learning.

Tom Winstanley, Head of Innovation at NTT DATA UK, commented: “NTT DATA is committed to using information technology to help contribute to a more affluent and harmonious society. The Open Innovation Contest is at the core of that mission, and yet again this year’s UK finalists have given us plenty of inspiration: for me, all the finalists are winners in their own right. However, GeoSpock stood out for its potential to provide a platform for the data insights that will underpin the future, and we will be supporting them next month in their bid to be named global champion.”

Richard Baker, CEO of GeoSpock, said: “Our product is all about bringing contextual understanding to the everything-connected world, so receiving the backing of a major global business like NTT DATA is massive validation of what we are trying to achieve. The Open Innovation Contest can be a massive springboard for our business, and we are looking forward the chance to win the grand finale in Tokyo.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by NTT DATA UK .