Innovators to watch

What is innovation? How do you recognise it in business?

London Business School’s Real Innovation Awards showcase the real ingredients of innovation: tenacity, originality, good timing and serendipity. Who were the winners this year and what made them the innovators to watch in 2018 and beyond?

Gerard Vidal, founder of Enigmedia is the winner of the Alexander Fleming Serendipity Award, given to a person or organisation that built a thriving business on an idea that originated in the most unexpected or surprising way. The judges selected Vidal for his achievements in data security. He applied his 2005 PhD findings along with his telecoms degree to develop a faster and more efficient encryption process. He has a simple message for those looking to follow in his entrepreneur’s footsteps: “Whatever happens, just keep doing what you are doing and try to change the world.”

Jeff Skinner, Executive Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) and one of the awards’ judges, says the panel was impressed by the versatility of the software, which enables business to have conversations and share videos without any risk of being hacked. “It guarantees ownership of the most valuable digital assets,” he says.

Tarek Al Emam collected the Peoples’ Choice award in the same category for Freezmate. It produces heating and cooling products – from neck coolers to mattresses for refugees. Says Skinner: “This business started by solving first world problems like neck coolers but it soon spread into multiple uses to keep dogs and babies warm or cool.”

Off the back of commercial success Al Emam has formed a partnership to supply mattresses to Syrian refugees. Reflecting on his achievements the Freezmate founder and CEO, says: “I put aside 15 years of banking to come up with this idea. The payback was seeing smiles of the children in Syria and Lebanon – that was the reason I did this.”

In the only instance this year of the people agreeing with the experts’ choice, Harare-based EcoCash collected both the Judges’ and People’s Choice in The Best Beats First Award. This award is for the company that moved quickly to dominate an emerging market category, typically with a different and better business model than the first mover. EcoCash did this in Zimbabwe by providing banking to millions through their mobile phones.

“EcoCash have built a customer orientated product, which embraces the financially marginalised and dramatic growth followed,” says Julian Birkinshaw, panel judge, LBS Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Deputy Dean.