Winners announced and awards presented at NetEvents Global Press & Analyst Summit gala charity dinner San Jose, California
The winners of the IoT, Cloud & Cybersecurity Innovation Awards 2018 were announced at the NetEvents Global Press & Analyst Summit Gala Awards Dinner at the Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California, USA. These prestigious awards celebrate the year’s most significantly innovative start-ups and established companies in the fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud/Datacenter and Cybersecurity arenas. All money raised at the awards, including donations from the gala dinner, is being shared between three charities: Prostate Cancer Research, STEM and UNICEF. This year’s charitable contributions brought the total raised to-date to over $130,000.
Six company categories were awarded:
- Three “Hot Start Up awards” categories for innovative pre-IPO contestants in Cybersecurity, IoT & Cloud/Datacenter.
- The three “Innovation Leader awards” covered the same categories, but was for established organizations. They were judged by an independent panel of leading technology press and industry analysts from across the globe.
HOT START-UPS
For the three Hot Start Up categories, finalists were short-listed by the panel of leading technology press and industry analysts from around the globe. Each gave a short elevator pitch in ‘Shark Tank’ style before an audience of technology leaders, press and analysts representing over 35+ countries around the world. The judging panel included Silicon Valley VCs and business angels: Janice Roberts, Partner, Benhamou Global Venture Partners; Hiro Rio Maeda, Managing Director, Draper Nexus; Siddhant Trivedi, Investor, Omidyar Technology Ventures; Curtis Feeny, Partner, Silicon Valley Data Capital. Curtis Feeny presented the Hot Start-Up awards at the Gala Awards Dinner on behalf of the VC judging panel.
For the Hot Start-Up – Cloud/Datacenter: AiSense Inc. was chosen to receive the award presented by Curtis Feeny, Partner, Silicon Valley Data Capital. In the judges’ opinion: “AiSense simply had the best natural voice translation capability we’ve ever seen, making them a solid winner in the Cloud Start-Up space.”
For the Hot Start-Up – IoT Award – presented by Curtis Feeny, Partner, Silicon Valley Data Capital: PoLTE was the winner on account of its: “Much needed (and heavily patented) software solution providing best cost performance in cellular tracking of IoT assets”.
For the Hot Start Up – Cybersecurity Award presented by Curtis Feeny, Partner, Silicon Valley Data Capital: FYDE was the winner. In the judge’s opinion: “FYDE addresses the ubiquitous and never-ending human risk of getting phished. Their uniqueness was around their low latency distributed mobile solution”.
INNOVATION LEADERS
The winner of the Innovation Leader – IoT Award – presented by Scott Raynovich, Principal Analyst, Futuriom – was NetFoundry, which offers technology for building application-specific networks. From the judges, Tony Savvas, Editor, IoT Now, IoT Now Transport, Internet of Business, Optical Connections and IT Europa explained: “The buzz is all around SD-WANs to support new data hungry applications. NetFoundry has taken it one step further with a solution that focuses on the needs of the actual app, not just the technology segment the app sits in, to find an efficient connection.”
The Innovation Leader – Cloud/Datacentre Award – presented by Brandon Butler, Senior Research Analyst – Network Infrastructure, IDC – went to Apstra. “Enterprise networks are under tremendous pressure to evolve to take full advantage of technologies such as cloud computing, the sprawl of mobile devices and vast amounts of big data,” Butler said. “To do so, organizations are looking to embrace next-generation network automation, visibility and assurance tools, which has led to the advent of Intent Based Networking. Apstra is one of the companies helping to turn the vision of Intent Based Networking a reality for enterprises.”
The Innovation Leader – Cybersecurity Award – presented by Hector Pizarro, Editor in Chief, Diario Ti – went to went to ForeScout Technologies Inc. Judge Antonio Dini, Journalist, Cor.com, Italy, commended ForeScout: “For the ability to deploy agentless solutions that offer continuous visibility in heterogeneous environments, moving beyond traditional security to a more future proof approach that may be able to help secure billions of network-connected devices”.
The NetEvents Global press and Analyst Summit offers a stimulating and topical two-day conference program of hot debates, head-to-heads and presentations by visionaries and industry analysts. For vendors it provides an exceptional opportunity to meet these networking and communications industry gatekeepers and spend quality time together in an informal yet focused environment. For full details of the NetEvents program of events and awards visit: www.netevents.org
