Between July 6 and October 31, 2020, Sisal once again invited pioneering start-ups, existing companies and students within Italy to take part in its annual GoBeyond1 contest; an initiative intended to provide tangible support to young entrepreneurs and business owners with innovative designs and ideas.
Now in its fourth year, Sisal’s GoBeyond initiative was accompanied by a new look and a two-pronged approach: the call for ideas and the innovation content hub. This is all set against the backdrop of Sisal’s deep desire to play a leading role in reviving Italy’s economy by offering entrants the opportunity to enhance their business through digital and technological innovation.
As always, the 2020 edition of GoBeyond called on new and existing companies that put people and pioneering ideas at the center of their business philosophy. This year, participants were presented with two eligible categories, namely Business Resilience, and Collectivity. An overall winner was also selected.
Sisal is an Italian gaming and betting company, which operates within the regulated gaming and betting industry and manages a wide range of on- and offline games, including lotteries, betting, casino games, AWP and VLT.5 Sisal reports EUR 9.8 billion in the gaming sector for 2019, has more than 1,800 employees, and operates a network of more than 39,000 points of sale.
The success of Sisal’s ideas underpins the financial results and reputation of a company that has built a relationship of trust and credibility with over 6.8 million Italian consumers over more than 70 years.
Today, Sisal is also a leading player abroad and, through a careful strategy of internationalization, the company has successfully managed to develop new business opportunities and consolidate its leadership in new markets. In particular, in addition to the Italian market, Sisal also operates in Morocco, Spain, and Turkey.
Overall winner, Chi Odia Paga, provides a platform to combat online hate-speech.
The first category, Business Resilience, refers to projects intending to bolster the resilience of companies as they resume in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a profound impact on the country and businesses in general. The second category, Collectivity, was directed at projects aimed at offering original solutions to social issues, and the advancement of local communities.
As it pertains to prizes, the best overall project was awarded a EUR 50,000 grant, while the winning idea in each of the two competing categories received a EUR 30,000 prize. In addition, each category winning idea was granted entry into an excellence advisory program of their choice, offered with the support of a network of enabling partners. These partners include: Corriere Innovazione, Osservatori Digital Innovation – Politecnico di Milano, Google, frog design, Roland Berger, Brunswick, K&L Gates, Aruba.it, Mamacrowd, and Angels4Women.
The winning projects were selected by the GoBeyond jury, made up of a group of experts in innovation and entrepreneurship. The overall winning project for 2020 was awarded to COP (Chi Odia Paga – in English, Who hates, pays), the first legaltech startup in Italy to provide users all the technical and legal tools to defend themselves in a simple, fast, and safe way from online hate-speech.2
The startup category winners for 2020 were awarded to:
• VoiceMed: for the category Business Resilience. VoiceMed uses real-world voice data, acquired through user-friendly digital tools, to identify diseases.3
• Sabreen: for the category Collectivity. Sabreen is a smart assistant for breast screening designed by HTLab (Healthcare Technology Lab). Sabreen allows women under 40 years of age to independently perform an ultrasound screening of their breasts, using a probe connected to a smartphone.4
The VoiceMed app uses real-world voice data to identify diseases.
Team Sabreen, developers of smart phone-linked breast screening, won the Collectivity category.
The first three editions of GoBeyond attracted over 600 ideas from across Italy. The winner of the first call for ideas was dbGlove, a project aimed at improving the lives of the blind and deaf-blind. The 2018 winner in the Social Innovation category was Wiseair, a smart vase that acts as a distributed, hyperlocal, and real-time air quality monitor. The winner in the Citizen Services category was Plick, the easy-to-use payment system with no IBAN, no app and no limits.
The 2019 winner in the Social category was Corax, a medical device designed to aid in dealing with complications from burns in children, while the winner in the People category was BionIT labs-Adam’s Hand, the first fully adaptive bionic hand. In addition to its success in GoBeyond, BionIT Labs’ Adam’s Hand has also achieved other significant results, including a positive equity crowdfunding campaign on Mamacrowd, and its participation in CES in Las Vegas as one of the top 50 Italian start-ups at the world’s most influential new product and technology trade show.
1 The GoBeyond website can be accessed at: https://www.gobeyond.info/.
2 Visit the website of COP at: https://www.chiodiapaga.it/ (in Italian).
3 For information on VoiceMed, visit their website at: https://www.voicemed.io/. ;
4 For more information on Sabreen, visit the website of HTLab at https://www.htlab.it/en/sabree...;
5 Get to know Sisal better by visiting their website at https://www.sisal.com/.
