The final of the Digital Logistics Awards took place on the first day of the “Future Congress Logistics - 37th Dortmunder Gespräche”. Prior to the event, a jury of experts had nominated eight start-ups and start-ins that had applied for the "Digital Hub Logistics" award with their digital and innovative logistics solutions. The "Digital Hub Logistics" presents this award to honor creative business concepts for production, retail, mobility, agriculture & food, the financial sector and other industries.
Founded in 2016, NÜWIEL drives the vision of freeing urban spaces from noise, congestion and air pollution: The electrically powered bicycle trailer for last mile logistics, developed by the Hamburg start-up, features patented technology so that it can automatically follow the routes a bicycle takes. Co-founder Natalia Tomiyama was very excited about winning the first place in the Digital Logistics Award: "Our product is often underestimated because it doesn't seem innovative at first glance. But the trailer is full of intelligence, i.e. sensors and software." Companies such as UPS, IKEA and Airbus are therefore already on the list of pilot projects that NÜWIEL is already carrying out successfully.
Second place was taken by ForkOn from Haltern am See. The company, founded in 2017, makes the management of forklift truck fleets simpler and more transparent. The manufacturer-independent software solution developed by this start-up brings all the data relating to a company's forklift fleet together, and then analyses and interprets it. The aim is to reduce the costs of forklift fleets by an average of 25 percent.
With a simple app, start-up asurveyor.com from Cape Town wants to help small and medium-sized farmers from Africa verify the initial quality of their products for international customers and insurance companies and to simplify the quality control of fruit and vegetables throughout the entire supply chain. The idea won third place for the founders. The blockchain-safe solution, which is expected to be launched in February next year, will also deliver automated status reports from more remote areas.
With the nomination for the final, all of the eight teams received two free tickets to attend the Future Congress Logistics as well as a free exhibition area. In a five-minute pitch, they were able to present their founding ideas to more than 500 decision-makers from the logistics sector. Participation in the final thus offered all teams the opportunity to make new business contacts in this sector. In addition, the first place received 15,000 Euros, second place 8,000 Euros and third place 3000 Euros to support the market entry. In addition, the three winning teams will represent their companies at the German Logistics Congress in Berlin.
The Digital Logistics Award jury this year included Marcus Gropp (Kloeckner Metals Operations GmbH), Dr. Stephan Peters (Rhenus SE) and Christina Thurner (LOXXESS AG) as well as Claas Nieraad (Next Logistics Accelerator) and Karolin Hewelt (Digital Hub Agency RCKT).
The "Digital Hub Logistics" in Dortmund, supported by the Fraunhofer Institutes for Material Flow and Logistics IML and for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, EffizienzCluster Management GmbH and Duisburger Hafen AG, aims to push forward the digitization of the logistics sector in Germany. It is an initiative by the Digital Association Bitkom and part of the Digital Hub Initiative of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi), which has twelve hubs throughout Germany.
Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML