On 19 February 2009, the KIS Contest as part of the Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform (KIS-IP) brought together young European companies active in knowledge intensive services in the fields of ICT, renewable energies and satellite downstream applications. Such entrepreneurs where invited to showcase their businesses to an international audience of experts from investment, industry and academia, reviewing them for the contest.
32 companies presented over the 1-day meeting, hosted by European Commission (DG Enterprise) under the KIS-IP initiative in Brussels .
The winners
Most Successful Company
Winner
 Mr. G. Leutsch of NTS Energy & Transports | NTS Energy & Transports , a German company that will market an entirely new power plant for the production of electrical energy by harnessing the enormous energy of wind. "These are hard times for start-ups: Due to the financial crisis the investors losed their pockets. Therefore the KIS-Partner Forum has been a good chance for us to present our unique and patented concept to harness wind at high altitude and produce electricity for lesser costs than fossil fuels. Even if the VCs didn't write the checks at the forum: We have made good contacts at the Forum which might lead to an investment." |
Runners up
 Mr. J. Dryndos (CEO) of Logotec Engineering Group | Logotec Engineering Group from Poland offers a solution that automatically creates mobile counterparts of existing, large (=not mobile) applications. The created solution allows offline access to the user data with bi-directional synchronization - the user-specific customization is also included automatically. |
 Mr. A. Tori of Zemanta | Zemanta a London-based company offering revolutionary solutions for content creation, understanding text and suggesting improvements. "KIS Partnering forum was a great place to meet entrepreneurs and investors and see the potential that could be enabled in Europe if the right steps are taken!" |
Most Innovative Company
Winner
Mr. Jerzy Dryndos (CEO) of Logotec Engineering Group | Logotec Engineering "I'm excited with the two awards we received - especially considering the great competitors and the experts involved. I hope the awards are a great prediction about the real business. We need it!" |
Runners up
 Mr. Christophe Cabarry of SpecialChem | Special Chem - The Chemicals Technology and Business Development Accelerator, is a French company and implements Interactive Marketing & Connective Innovation processes in the chemicals and materials value chains to increase innovation speed & success of new products launches. |
 Mr. J. Power of Risaris | Risaris, from Ireland , delivering a software tool based on industry standards to enable access to legacy data and business logic in a much simpler, cost effective fashion than traditional integration mechanisms. John Power, the company's CEO commented: "I was very impressed with the level of the presentations from the participating companies and some of the ideas were also intriguing to say the least ! I was also impressed with the level of engagement of the formal panel on the day and the level of feedback they gave." |
About the KIS Partnering Forum
Approximately 150 participants from all over Europe attended the KIS Partnering Forum. This was the first out of three annual events, aiming at bringing together entrepreneurs, innovation practitioners, policy makers and investors to discuss the service innovation process, the key challenges faced by innovative services businesses and the type of new innovation support measures that are emerging.
The event was a combination of company review sessions, which presented SMEs active in the fields of knowledge intensive services and discussion sessions elaborating on issues such as trying to understand the service innovation process, reviewing the financing situation and looking at policy matters.
Amongst others, speakers included Prof. Alan Barrell ( University of Cambridge ) (presentation available here), Prof. Colin Turner, Tiina Tanninen-Ahonen (Tekes), Dr. Jan Nylander (Innovationsbron), Wilbert Schaap (SenterNovem) ...
A full list of participants can be downloaded here.
