DEKRA Award 2022 – The winners

Droniq GmbH

Europe-wide first trial of the European Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA) U-Space concept with the aim of enabling safe drone use in urban regions.

The submission

The first U-Spaces could be established in Europe from 2023. This is a type of drone airspace that can be set up primarily in urban regions and is intended to ensure safe drone operations. The concept for this comes from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Together with DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung (German Air Traffic Control), the Frankfurt-based Droniq GmbH insatz has demonstrated for the first time throughout Europe how the concept can be safely put into practice as part of the "U- Space Reallabor Hamburg" project, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport.

Jury statement

For the first time, Droniq has demonstrated how the use of drones in urban regions can be made safe and efficient. By putting the U-Space concept into practice and acting as a U-Space service provider, Droniq has not only demonstrated that the idea in question works; rather, Droniq has also shown how it can safely coordinate drone traffic in a U-Space as a USSP in the future.

Airbus Defence and Space GmbH

IMMUNE - Self-defending networks for a resilient Industry 4.0.

The submission

IMMUNE has developed an immune system for future industrial production infrastructures that detects cyber attacks at an early stage and provides local countermeasures to counter attacks in a timely manner, thus mitigating or averting any negative impact on the overall system.

Jury statement

The IMMUNE platform includes flexible control of networks based on the consistent application of software-defined networking down to the fieldbus level, methods for detecting even advanced cyber attacks on industrial plants, and measures for their dynamic assessment and treatment. The IMMUNE platform therefore takes a holistic approach to defending industrial networks in depth, detecting APT and insider attacks in addition to conventional attacks. Furthermore, the IMMUNE platform also enables the detection of zero-day vulnerabilities.

AfB gemeinnützige GmbH

Inclusion and climate protection through reprocessing of used company IT

The submission

AfB buys IT equipment such as notebooks, PCs, tablets and smartphones from companies, professionally refurbishes them and markets them again to companies and end customers in the spirit of the circular economy. In this way, AfB contributes to environmental and climate protection, since every IT device that is used for a longer period of time prevents the resource-devouring production and scrapping of new devices. Partner companies receive an impact or CSR certificate on the resources and emissions saved, which they can use for their sustainability reporting.

In addition, partners and customers promote inclusion: Half of the 400 employees in the AfB inclusion company in Germany are people with disabilities who work for us in permanent positions subject to pension and social insurance contributions. Of our approximately 650 employees in Europe, 45% are disabled.

Jury statement

Secondary use of IT hardware saved valuable resources compared to new production.

In addition, partners and customers promote inclusion: Half of the 400 employees in the AfB inclusion company in Germany are people with disabilities who are employed on a permanent basis with pension and social insurance obligations. Of around 650 employees in Europe, this figure is 45%.

Podcast of Solutions by Handelsblatt

Social and green IT

To the Podcast

Kraftblock GmbH

Green electricity is converted into heat up to 1000°C.

The submission

Kraftblock's Net-Zero-Heat system converts green electricity into heat up to 1000°C and stores it. This energy can then be used flexibly and safely as process heat in industry. This allows large parts of industry to be decarbonized, since heat, not electricity, emits the most emissions. The storage means that renewable sources do not have to be shut off and the electricity can be purchased at convenient times, such as at night, saving industry money compared to expensive fossil fuels.

Jury statement

Kraftblock provides the key technology for the success of the energy transition and thus the global climate efforts without restricting industry. This is achieved with a sustainable storage facility whose production emits hardly any CO2 and in which there are no rare earths, which has been achieved through years of scientific research.

The winners were determined by live voting during the event on November 10, 2022. The jury determined the top 3 startups during the jury session.

The finalists were:

Intenseye Inc.
Kraftblock GmbH
PHYSEC GmbH

All nominees