[March 16, 2017] |
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NTT DATA Selects Social Coin as Winner of Open Innovation Business Contest
NTT (News - Alert) DATA, a global IT service provider, announced today that it selected
Barcelona-based Social Coin as the winner of the Open Innovation
Business Contest 5.0 during the contest's Grand Finale at NTT DATA
headquarters in Toyosu, Tokyo on March 15. The winning proposal is for a
Civic Engagement Platform based on deep learning that helps citizens
solve civic issues through a blockchain system. Social Coin will receive
a three-month in-kind contribution from NTT DATA to support development
of a concrete plan for its proposed venture business.
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Grand Finale winner of the Open Innovation Business Contest (Photo: Business Wire)
The global competition organized by NTT DATA invited high-tech companies
worldwide to submit information-technology (IT) proposals for promising
solutions to issues in global society. The judging panel included NTT
DATA personnel and outside experts.
Social Coin offers a platform for leveraging open data and machine
learning tools to promote civic participation. The platform uses
artificial intelligence to identify problems that citizens and
governments can solve through collaboration to promote local economies.
The solution, selected for best matching the contest's theme of
collaborative innovation for previously unimagined solutions, enables
value-creation by public institutions, private-sector companies and
individual citizens, all potential customers of NTT DATA. It is highly
expected the solution will become new public infrastructure for the
betterment of society.
NTT DATA received more than 200 applications from some 20 countries
between October and December last year. Regional contests wer held in
10 cities of nine countries spread across four continents - Tokyo, San
Francisco, Toronto, Sao Paulo, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Tel Aviv,
Singapore and Beijing - between February 2 and March 2. The entrants
presented venture proposals covering fields including fintech, IoT,
energy, insurance tech, big data, digital marketing, blockchain, API,
personal data, AI, cyber security, virtual/augmented reality and
robotics. Ten entrants were selected as the winners of the regional
contests to present their proposals during the just-completed Grand
Finale in Tokyo.
In addition to the winning prize, an Audience (News - Alert) Award was presented to
Soundpays Inc. (Toronto) and Judges Awards were presented to PayKey (Tel
Aviv) and Everledger (London) by NTT DATA representatives on the judging
panel.
Mr. Ivan Caballero, CEO of Social Coin, said, "I look forward to
collaborating with NTT DATA on product and business development and
deploying our citizen engagement platform internationally. I believe
that Social Coin offers innovative technologies to enable citizen
rewarding and boost personal, corporate and government impact on
society."
Kotaro Zamma, Head of NTT DATA's Open Innovation and Business
Incubation, said, "This year's contest was especially successful in
creating opportunities for NTT DATA to come into contact with more than
200 innovative startup companies, as well as form deeper relationships
with accelerators operating as regional partners in innovation hubs
worldwide. Today's Grand Finale is the real starting point, so we now
look forward to collaborating with Social Coin to co-create an
innovative new business."
Each regional contest was organized in collaboration with a regional
partner - NTT DATA UK Innovate Finance (UK), everis (Spain/Brazil), MaRS
Discovery District (Canada), Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (China) , NTT DATA Inc./ Pilot 44 Labs (U.S.), Deloitte (News - Alert) Israel
(Israel) and Startupbootcamp/Asian Payment Network (Singapore).
Going forward, NTT DATA plans to hold two Open Innovation Business
Contests each year, one of which will solicit applications worldwide to
help accelerate global innovation. NTT DATA is confident that its Open
Innovation Business Contests are winning propositions for startup
companies, NTT DATA and client companies of NTT DATA, as well as global
society.
By 2020, NTT DATA aims to achieve cumulative revenue in excess of 10
billion yen (about 100 million USD) from its Open Innovation and
Business Incubation Business Strategy Department, including venture
businesses launched as a result of Open Innovation Business Contests.
The department has been organizing annual contests since 2013, in
addition to collaborating with internal accelerator working groups in
pursuit of new business creation.
To view the contestants' details, please visit http://oi.nttdata.com/en/contest/result.
About NTT DATA
NTT DATA (TOKYO: 9613) is a leading IT services provider and global
innovation partner headquartered in Tokyo, with business operations in
over 50 countries. Its emphasis is on long-term commitments, combining
global reach with local intimacy to provide premier professional
services varying from consulting and systems development to outsourcing.
For more information, visit www.nttdata.com
All products, corporations and organization names are registered
trademarks or corporate trademarks.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170316005057/en/
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