Dr. IV Start Up Wins Avanade Digital Innovation Award 2020
Athens, 30 June 2020
Dr. IV, a JA start-up from Greece, has won the 2020 Avanade Digital Innovation Award, part of this year’s JA Enterprise Challenge run by JA Europe, Europe’s largest non-profit dedicated to preparing young people for employment and entrepreneurship. This year’s competition was held entirely virtually for the first time, enabled by Avanade, the leading digital innovator on the Microsoft ecosystem.
Open to students aged between 18 and 30, the event saw 17,000+ participate in national start-up competitions. Eighteen teams from 17 countries then went on to compete at the pan-European level, which involved creating and delivering a pitch, live jury interviews and filming a video commercial.
Heba Ramzy, Avanade’s Global Corporate Citizenship Lead, praised this year’s Digital Innovation Award winning team for its approach in tackling a very topical issue: “The students of the Start Up Dr. IV showed an extraordinary capacity to embrace digital innovation to solve a real-life problem in the health care sector. Their use of IoT technology and a mobile app to monitor intravenous infusion in hospitals is especially relevant in the context of Covid-19 and the enormous pressure that has put on hospital staff.”
Dr.IV will receive a cash prize and be offered 1:1 mentoring and business coaching by Avanade. Its members will also have the opportunity to meet Avanade’s senior leadership and attend selected Avanade events.
“Digital innovation is critical to the success and survival of any organization, especially as they look to recover from a crisis. At Avanade we strive to play a leading role in helping prepare the workforce of the future and to help organizations rethink how they encourage the development of entrepreneurial and leadership skills among young people”, Heba Ramzy, commented. “The JA Start Up Programme is a great opportunity for the next generation of entrepreneurs to explore digital innovation and apply it in a real-life business context” she concluded.
Avanade and JA Europe have collaborated through a close partnership since 2016, supporting JA programmes that teach young people about technology, leadership and entrepreneurship. This year, the collaboration was taken to a new level by joining forces to turn the JA Europe Start-Up Challenge into a virtual format.
“It is inspiring to see how young people are embracing digital innovation, coming up with ideas that are worth being scaled up. The partnership between Avanade and JA Europe shows how organisations can best embrace digital transformation to rebuild the economy”, said Adam Warby, Chairman of JA Europe “Our collaboration with Avanade has a measurable impact in encouraging digital innovation amongst our Start-Up Programme students, providing them with a competitive advantage when entering the labour market”, added Salvatore Nigro, CEO of JA Europe.
Avanade Digital Innovation Signature Award 2020 jury members:
- Heba Ramzy, Global Citizenship Senior Director, Avanade
- Lise af Ekenstam, Executive – Europe Marketing and Tech for Social Good, Avanade
- Juan Bossicard, Corporate Citizenship Manager, Avanade
- Toby Goldblatt, Executive for Data & AI, Avanade
Avanade Digital Innovation Award 2020 judging criteria:
The Award goes to the team whose business concept best demonstrated excellence in the following areas:
Business Viability (20%): Does the team demonstrate sufficient business potential, with a realistic and practical business plan? Has the team presented a well thought through plan (do they have in place a strategy, business case, partnership structure, distribution channels) that have all the elements of being successful in the identified markets? Does the company accurately recognize and fill a gap in the market, or create a new one? Does the team have potential investors lined up, and a market tested product?
- Customer Experience (20%): How does the concept improve experiences of the customer? What friction points/challenges does this solve? What is the North Star experience you are seeking to create and how does that benefit the customer?
- Use of Digital Innovation taking into account feasibility (20%): Has the team demonstrated application of digital innovations such as those listed above in their product or services? Does the concept bring together the right mix of digital technologies and innovation to realize the North Star experience?
- Business Sustainability (15%): Has the team demonstrated concrete steps to ensure a real and sustainable business, from leadership, recruiting top talent, operational agility and efficiencies, sound decision making where it comes to taking calculated risks to grow.
- Digital Ethics (10%): Has the team demonstrated a commitment to digital ethics? Which digital ethics principles are taken into consideration by the start-up? Does the product or service development demonstrate an approach or a methodology based on the concept of “digital ethics by design”?
- Presentation and soft skills (15%): Was the team’s presentation creative and compelling? Does the team demonstrate effective team work and communication skills to present their company to various stakeholders?
- BONUS Criterion (5%): Use of AI/ Data Technology: Has the team successfully combined the business concept idea with data management / AI technologies to offer innovative solutions and/or new business model scenarios.
About JA Europe
JA Europe is the largest non-profit in Europe dedicated to preparing young people for employment and entrepreneurship. JA Europe is a member of JA Worldwide, which for 100 years has delivered hands on, experiential learning in entrepreneurship, work readiness and financial literacy. JA creates pathways for employability, job creation and financial success. Last school year, the JA network in Europe reached more than 4 million young people across 40 countries with the support of 140,000 business volunteers and 130,000 teachers/educators.
About Avanade
Avanade is the leading provider of innovative digital and cloud services, business solutions and design-led experiences delivered through the power of people and the Microsoft ecosystem. Our professionals bring bold, fresh thinking combined with technology, business and industry expertise to help fuel transformation and growth for our clients and their customers. Avanade has 36,000 digitally connected people across 24 countries, bringing clients the best thinking through a collaborative culture that honours diversity and reflects the communities in which we operate. Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation.
JA Europe press contact:
Minna Melleri (minna@jaeurope.org)
