Geneva, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany (PRWEB UK) 4 October 2013
Openet and Tobii Technology was announced as the Entrepreneur of the Year Award and Innovation Award Winners, respectively, at the 2013 Tech Growth Summit and Entrepreneur of the Year Award Gala Dinner held at Tempelhofer Freiheit on September 24, 2013 in Berlin.
The 8th Annual Entrepreneur of the Year Award Ceremony continues to celebrate the up and coming companies in Europe and commend their excellence in Entrepreneurship. Sven Lingjaerde, Founder of the Tech Tour commented that, “The Award seeks to shine a light on the human side of technology and illuminate those dynamic and visionary entrepreneurs leading us to the technology of tomorrow with their quest for excellence.”
The prestigious award has a knack for choosing companies that have not only risen in success, but will continue to do so for years to come. Since it was first introduced by the Tech Tour in 2006, the Entrepreneur of the Year Award can claim a flawless track record in identifying and rewarding successful and long lasting free enterprises. Past successful Entrepreneur of the Year winners include, in order of year awarded: Klarna, Betfair, Gameforge, QlikTech, Parallels, MySQL, and Wonga. Past successful Innovation Award Winners include: Enecsys, Soundcloud, Spartoo.com, Meltwater Group, Alfresco, Icera, Novaled, Corevalve and Vente-Privee.com.
The Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner, Openet, was founded in 1999 in Dublin, Ireland and has grown in success as a leading software company that helps to analyze and commercialize data for telecommunications service providers by combining policy and charging control models. "I am delighted and honored to accept the 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year Award on behalf of Openet,” said Joe Hogan, Openet founder and CTO. “It's rewarding for our peers to recognize the creativity and hard work Openet have put into building real time decision systems for the world's largest communications service providers. Our products enable operators to fully realize the commercial potential of their networks as they diversify consumer offerings, enable the emerging "Internet of Things," and explore new business models."
Tobii Technology is the world leader in eye tracking and gaze interaction; revolutionizing computer interaction since its founding in 2001. John Elvesjö, CTO and Vice President of Tobii Technology said, “It is a true honor to receive the Innovation Award. Innovation is close to my heart, and maintaining an entrepreneurial perspective is a core component in how we run the company on a daily basis. Tobii has grown from a small start-up to become the established world leader in eye tracking. Today all 400 ‘Tobiians’ around the world contribute to the innovations and entrepreneurial spirit of our organization.”
The Tech Growth Summit will take place before the Entrepreneur of the Year Award Dinner and is the first event of its kind that caters to CEOs with the idea of fostering entrepreneurship at its core. Some highlights from the Tech Growth Summit included 25 CEO’s from European companies that have changed the world and are changing the world: Michael Altendorf, AdTelligence; Pieter van der Does, Adyen; Jan Hichert, Astaro; Vincent Steckler, Avast; Bernard Liautaud, Balderton; Karim Barkawi, B2X; Uwe Weiss, Blue Yonder; Niklas Ostberg, Delivery Hero; Graham O’Keefe, Displaylink; Carsten Thoma, hybris; Sherry Coutu, iii; Mike Lynch, Invoke; Niklas Adalberth, Klarna; Ivan Retzignac, MedicAnimal; Titus Sharpe, Mvf; Greg Brogger, NPM; Niall Norton, Openet; Julia Bösch, Outfittery; Stan Laurent, PhotoBox; Salvatore Esposito, Populis; Pere Valle, Scytl; Cem Sertoglu, SelectMinds; Vassil Terziev, Telerik; Mårten Skogö, Tobii Technology; John Bruggeman, Traxpay; Christopher Maire, Txtr; Heiko Rauch, UFOstart.com; Ernesto Schmitt, Zeebox; Mans Hultman, Zobito and Giles Andrews, Zopa.
Top level speakers illuminated panel discussions and keynotes and included: Ulrich Schmitz; Axel Springer, Thomas Fakhouri; Bank of America, Cornelia Barbara Yzer, Senator for Economics, Technology and Research, Berlin; Alexander von Preysing, Deutsche Börse; Martin Ott; Facebook, Erik Jorgensen; Intel Capital, Greg Brogger NASDAQ Private Market, Albert Ganyushin; NYSE Euronext and Teppo Paavola; PayPal.
About the European Entrepreneur of the Year Award
The European Entrepreneur of the Year Award is presented to the European technology entrepreneur whose private company has had the biggest impact, on the largest number of people, in the least amount of time. The winners were selected by an independent committee of business leaders and venture capitalists including Selection Committee, Chair Coelho and the Selection Committee: Alex Brabers, Gimv; Ophelia Brown, Index; Aris Constantinides, NBGI Ventures; Julie Curran, SEP; Thorsten Jelinek, World Economic Forum; Sven Lingjaerde, Endeavour Vision; Joerg Sievert, SAP Ventures; Lars Singbartl, Warburg Pincus; Tyler Sosin, Accel and Dusan Stojanovic, True Global Ventures. Pictet and Frederique Constant generously sponsor the Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
About the Tech Tour
The Tech Tour was founded in Geneva in 1998 in response to the growing interest in emerging technology companies in Europe. The Tech Tour is an organization composed of key contributors to the high technology industry. The organization recognizes that continued prosperity in Europe lies in its ability to transform today's innovative projects into tomorrow's global technology leaders. http://www.techtour.com
Media contacts:
Laurian Harry
Tech Tour
+41-22 544 6090
laurian(at)techtour(dot)com
