2022 DEKRA Awards presented in new categories

DEKRA, the international expert organization, has announced the winners of the DEKRA Award 2022. This year's prestigious awards went to Droniq GmbH ("Safety" category), Airbus Defence and Space GmbH ("Security"), and AfB gGmbH ("Sustainability"). The award in the "Start-up" category was decided by an audience vote: The winner is Kraftblock GmbH.

"In a volatile and uncertain technologically-enabled world, the risks and threats to highly complex value chains and to all modern societies are constantly evolving," says Stan Zurkiewicz, CEO and Chairman DEKRA e.V. and DEKRA SE Management Board. "As the global partner for a safe, secure and sustainable world, the DEKRA Award gives us a platform for recognizing and promoting outstanding, forward-looking solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of our times. The top-class entries for the DEKRA Award 2022 are a proof that emerging risks produce innovative concepts and pioneering technical safety, security and sustainability solutions."

Together with its partner WirtschaftsWoche, Germany's leading business magazine, DEKRA has been organizing the DEKRA Award for many years. This year, the expert jury recognized outstanding achievements and best practices in three new categories: "Safety," "Security," and "Sustainability." In addition, DEKRA is once again honoring young businesses with promising ideas and concepts in the "Start-up" category.

DEKRA Award Winner 2022 "Safety"

Smooth drone traffic flow in conurbations: Droniq GmbH, based in Frankfurt am Main, has demonstrated how this can work in practice with its development work. From 2023 onward, "U-Spaces" – demarcated airspaces – can be defined in Europe to ensure safe and efficient air and drone traffic. Together with Deutsche Flugsicherung (German Air Traffic Control), Droniq demonstrated, for the first time, how the concept can be implemented safely. This was part of the "U-Space Sandbox Hamburg" project funded by the Bundesministerium für Digitales und Verkehr (German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport).

DEKRA Award Winner 2022 "Security"

Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, based in Taufkirchen, has developed, together with research partners, a cyber protection system for Industry 4.0. The IMMUNE system – an "immune system" for the industrial production infrastructure of the future – detects cyber-attacks and repels them at an early stage through local countermeasures. The impact on the overall system is mitigated or averted. The platform can isolate individual services, entire devices within the industrial network, individual network components, or complete subnetworks as necessary, and reroute the affected data flows.

DEKRA Award Winner 2022 "Sustainability"

AfB gemeinnützige GmbH, based in Düren, makes it possible for IT to be both green and socially responsible. As a pioneer in refurbishment, AfB purchases used IT equipment such as notebooks, PCs, tablets, and smartphones from companies. After refurbishing them to a professional standard, it sells them as part of the circular economy to companies and end customers. In doing so, the company is making an important contribution to environmental and climate protection. Additionally, as an inclusive company (a special class of company with a high percentage of disabled employees), almost 50 percent of AfB's employees has have a severe disability. AfB is making a valuable social contribution with this policy.

DEKRA Award Winner 2022 "Startups"

In the "Startups" category, the DEKRA Award is seeking young businesses which are developing innovative solutions and smart business models to meet tomorrow's challenges. Three nominated companies presented their innovations in a three-minute "Elevator Pitch" during the evening awards ceremony on November 10, 2022: Intenseye Inc for an AI-powered workplace safety platform, Kraftblock GmbH for a thermal energy storage system for green energy and Physec GmbH for anti-tamper IoT radio chips. Kraftblock GmbH finally came out on top in the audience vote: Kraftblock's Net-Zero-Heat system converts green electricity into heat of 350-1300 °C and stores it. This energy can then be used flexibly and safely as process heat in industry.

The jury for the DEKRA Award 2022:

• Beat Balzli, Editor-in-chief of WirtschaftsWoche
• Carlos Bhola, Managing Partner, Celsius Capital
• Boris Böhme, Head of Product Safety Division, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
• Dr. Raimund Klinkner, Managing Partner at the Institute for Management Excellence GmbH
• Dr. Annette Niederfranke, Director, International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Stan Zurkiewicz, CEO and Chairman, DEKRA e.V. and DEKRA SE Management Board
• Yvonne Zwick, Chairwoman of the B.A.U.M e.V. Management Board, network for sustainable business