MEDIA RELEASE
Kickstart announces the results of its 2019 program: 40 innovations in Cybersecurity, EdTech & Learning, FinTech, Food & Retail Tech, HealthTech and Smart City are gaining strong momentum from cooperation with leading corporations and organizations.
ZURICH, November 8, 2019 – The Swiss ecosystem innovation platform Kickstart announces the initiation of numerous Proofs of Concepts (PoCs) and partnerships between startups and established organizations: This year's Kickstart program results in a total of 40 innovation partnerships.
After four months of intense preparations and collaborations, the projects with AXA, Coop, Migros, Swisscom, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Swiss Mobiliar, City of Zurich, Coca-Cola Switzerland, Credit Suisse, Empa, Panter, PostFinance, PwC Switzerland and more partner organizations will be announced tonight during a Closing Ceremony at the innovation space Kraftwerk in Zurich. «Kickstart was again very inspiring in 2019,», says Reto Conrad, Member of the Executive Committee of Coop. «There were many exciting discussions between Coop representatives and startups. We evaluated new product and process ideas and will again be able to implement several PoCs».
Kickstart continues to expand in 2020: The program will support technological innovations in circular economy together with MAVA Foundation and Impact Hub Switzerland, as part of the Circular Economy Transition initiative. Also, Kickstart will establish a stronger presence in Romandie.
Kickstart is a spin-off of Impact Hub Zurich and was launched in 2015 by digitalswitzerland. The ecosystem innovation platform brings together fast-growing startups, corporations, cities, universities, and foundations to jointly drive technological innovation with a positive impact. A total of 48 startups and 9 intrapreneurship teams from AXA, Migros, Swisscom, ETH Zürich, Axpo and Swiss Mobiliar participated in this year’s fourth edition.
The partnerships 2019 at a glance:
(Details on the Kickstart website)
Partnerships in the Cybersecurity Vertical:
Swiss Mobiliar and Statice have started a PoC to evaluate the anonymization of customer data for machine learning models.
Swiss Mobiliar and XM Cyber plan a PoC to evaluate the use of XM Cyber's attack and simulation solution.
Panter and Statice announced a business collaboration aiming at enabling privacy-preserving data innovation within the Swiss business ecosystem.
PostFinance and Statice intend to collaborate together in a joint PoC in the area of data anonymization.
Partnerships in the EdTech & Learning Vertical:
Klubschule Migros is testing in cooperation with Taskbase a prototype that provides personalized feedback – based on artificial intelligence – on exercises the students have completed.
Swisscom and Area9 Lyceum are joining forces in Learning & Development: In a pilot project, they will create an adaptive learning offering for managers, that allows reviewing expertise in various categories such as IT portfolio, sales, and digital literacy.
Mercator Foundation Switzerland and Education Alliance Finland in collaboration with the Swiss EdTech Collider and profilQ, are conducting a pilot project with Swiss teachers about evaluating digital learning solutions.
Mercator Foundation Switzerland and Taskbase, in cooperation with LerNetz and the "MakerSpace: Space for Creativity" are testing a prototype that, with the help of artificial intelligence, will enable personalized student feedback in open learning processes.
Kickstart tests Stroofy’s productivity and wellbeing analytics and employee coaching solution to assess their applicability for entrepreneurial community organizations.
Partnerships in the FinTech & Digital Assets Vertical:
AXA and Annanow are in the process of evaluating a PrePoC together with iKlinik. The aim is to offer customers in property insurance (consumer electronics, especially mobile phones) a free pick-up and drop-off service in the claims process.
Coop (Bau+Hobby and Interdiscount) and Annanow are conducting a pilot project to evaluate the delivery of purchases within 60 minutes from the store directly to customers' homes (last mile).
Swisscom and Assetyze are working together on a PoC in order to convert tangible assets such as fine art, watches, jewellery, vintage cars and other precious collectibles to creditworthy bankable assets by tokenization. The goal is to set the tokenization „gold standard“ for the, so far, non-bankable assets, starting with the tokenization of fine art.
Swisscom is launching a PoC with the FinTech startups atpar and swisspeers to foster market opportunities of a debt token for the Swiss financial industry.
Swisscom used Contract Vault‘s DocIQ platform to complete both a pilot project to process legal documents as well as a PoC aimed at facilitating dynamic and digital estate administration.
Credit Suisse (Switzerland) Ltd. and Annanow are examining a possible future collaboration and intend to identify joint business opportunities as a first step.
PwC Switzerland and Annanow signed a Letter of Intent to further evaluate a joint business relationship.
PwC Switzerland, Tax and Legal Services, and Helios Data Inc. signed a Letter of Intent to further evaluate a joint going to market cooperation in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Partnerships in the Food & Retail Tech Vertical:
Coop (Eisberg) and NiceFiller are working on a PoC testing the shelf life extension of packaged, freshly cut fruits.
Coop (Bell) and Posidonia are working on a PoC exploring the opportunity of lowering the salt content of meat produce.
Coop and Rebel Meat work together on a pilot project to test consumer acceptance of more sustainable meat products consisting of organic beef blended with mushrooms.
Coop (Eisberg) and SwissDeCode are working on a PoC around rapid testing of pathogens in salads.
M-Industry and Kaffe Bueno have started a PoC to test out ingredients obtained from used coffee grounds in a range of products.
M-Industry and NiceFiller have entered into a PoC to trial shelf-life prolonging packaging.
M-Industry and Posidonia have closed a PoC aimed at reducing the salt content of bread, whilst maintaining the same taste and quality.
Coca-Cola Switzerland and Kickstart have co-developed a cultural transformation program to further drive entrepreneurial behaviour at Coke.
Partnerships in the HealthTech Vertical:
AXA and OneDoc have agreed on a pilot project to enable online booking of therapists for AXA health clients.
AXA and Selfapy run a pilot project for a new service for SMEs. The aim is to prevent and detect absences from work because of psychological problems early.
Klubschule Migros and Braive are partnering to explore the demand of the Swiss market for online mental health solutions that will provide users with the opportunity to access online programs to improve wellbeing.
Klubschule Migros and the Migros health initiative iMpuls have partnered with Selfapy in order to explore the demand and level of acceptance by the Swiss market for online therapy courses in the field of mental health.
Medbase is performing individual PoCs with Selfapy, Medicus AI and Nahtlos to continue its effort bringing innovation into healthcare. Furthermore, Medbase will integrate Onedoc’s online booking platform into their service.
Partnerships in the Smart City & Technology Vertical:
Swisscom and BeON Energy examine together the possibilities to make Swisscom's mobile network more sustainable and energy-efficient.
The City of Zurich and Oxygen at Work work on improving the indoor air quality of the city’s office spaces and saving energy.
The City of Zurich and Totemi jointly implement a new type of guidance system for museums and public institutions.
Empa and Oxygen at Work will work together to further improve the impact of indoor plants on the energy efficiency of buildings.
Kraftwerk and Breeze Technologies jointly present an indoor air measurement sensor that will measure the air conditions on-site as a showcase for the visitors of Kraftwerk.
Panter and Totemi announced a business collaboration aiming at introducing new technologies like augmented reality and machine learning to enrich Totemi urban tour experiences.
Partnerships and projects in the Intrapreneurship Vertical:
Swiss Mobiliar plans to use the Client Centricity Module by advaisor (ETH Zürich spin-off) to improve customer friendliness in individual and mass correspondence.
After the successful pilots of UPTO car subscription for private individuals and fleet management for corporate customers, the AXA management has given the go-ahead for the rollout throughout Switzerland! The next step: growing and scaling through an AXA owned spin-off.
For more information, please contact:
Zsofia Molnar, Program Manager Kickstart
+41 77 529 63 26
zsofia@kickstart-innovation.com
About Kickstart
Kickstart is an ecosystem innovation platform to bridge the gap between startups, corporations, cities, foundations, and universities to accelerate deep tech innovation. Science- and engineering-driven technologies have the potential to transform humanity’s biggest problems into solvable challenges. These challenges require unprecedented collaboration between established organizations and audacious entrepreneurs. Each year, Kickstart brings up to 50 later-stage startups to Switzerland to collaborate with key players for proofs-of-concept, pilot projects, and other innovation partnerships. The program is free of charge (no fees, no equity) for selected growth ventures and provides exceptional access to the executives and decision-makers of Kickstart's partners. Additionally, the program supports different intrapreneurship teams from corporations and organizations every year.
Kickstart is a spin-off of Impact Hub Zurich and was launched 2015 by digitalswitzerland. In 2019, Kickstart runs six verticals (EdTech & Learning, FinTech & Digital Assets, Food & Retail Tech, Smart City & Technology, HealthTech, and Cybersecurity) together with partner organizations across industries and the private and public domains: AXA, Coop, Migros, Swisscom, Arcas Foundation, ETH Zürich, City of Zurich, Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Mercator Foundation Switzerland, Swiss Mobiliar, Swiss Federal Office for Energy, Axpo, City of St. Gallen, Coca-Cola Switzerland, Cognizant, Credit Suisse, CSEM, Dai-ichi Life, Empa NEST, eZürich, Givaudan, Office for Economy and Labour of Canton Zurich, Panter, PostFinance, PwC Switzerland, Ricolab, SATW, South Pole, Stäubli, Swiss Healthcare Startups SHS, Swiss Post, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, evitive, Frontier Network, Meyerlustenberger Lachenal Ltd., Wenger & Vieli AG and more.
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