Google will be joining forces with Beta-i at Lisbon Investment Summit, where it will be the host of the Google Workshop Stage – dedicated to founders’ talks, workshops and hands-on sessions on specific technologies.
We spoke with Nuno Pimenta, Industry Head Travel, Retail & Start Ups at Google, to know more about Google’s hands-on approach to help digitize the market and its involvement in the entrepreneurial community.
RT: How do you see digitalization happening in the corporate world and how is Google contributing to it?
NP: Digitalization in the corporate world is happening though at very different paces in different industries and companies. We see that Digital Sales have been one of the main drivers of this change meaning that companies where digital already represents a bigger share of their sales are speeding up. Google has been partnering with companies from all industries to help them to take the most out of their data and to accelerate their transformation efforts.
RT: What attracted Google to partner up with Beta-i and #LIS?
NP: Start Ups, Tech and Innovation are important pillars of Google’s operation in Portugal. We’ve been partnering closely with Beta-i that has been pivotal in creating the right set up for these pillars to foster in Portugal.
RT: What will Google bring to LIS?
NP: With the Google Talks, we will (again) this year bring some of the most successful founders and CEOs of startups to share their stories and how they made it. We believe their stories are truly inspirational for both founders of new companies and experienced leaders of big corporates. Additionally, we will have very interesting sessions on Cloud and how this technology is changing the way companies operate in many aspects.
RT: Why should corporates attend LIS?
NP: Innovation (and threats) are coming from everywhere and leaders of big corporates need to pay much closer attention to this. Lisbon Investment Summit is one of the most important events in Portugal to get a good sense of what areas are being disrupted and to find new potential partners for the future.
We’re happy to share that Beta-i has been named one of the 25 Best Financial Innovation Labs, as part of The Innovators 2019, an annual initiative by Global Finance magazine.
As an ecosystem builder in Lisbon, we’re are proud of the achievement. In the words of Pedro Rocha Vieira, our CEO and founder:
It’s naturally rewarding to see Beta-i again on such a narrow and prestigious list, which validates the work we’ve done. We are helping to reconfigure the financial universe, via fintechs, setting up programs like Pay Forward, with SIBS, or Protechting, which involves partners like Fidelidade, Fosun and Hauck & Aufhäuser, a German investment bank. This is an area where we identify new market opportunities, and Portugal can serve as a ‘sandbox’ for new business models and concepts in the financial area – for example, Brexit allows us to glimpse new opportunities. Startups like Feedzai, James, or Keep Warranty, are also making their way into this arena, which creates a more relevant cultural environment.
He also reminded that Portugal has a lot of opportunities to act as an innovation lab on testing new solutions: “There is an opportunity for countries like Portugal to position themselves to allow controlled testing of these technologies, especially in the context of the digital transformation of banks and the financial system, and I believe that’s where the role of Beta-i is, as a result of its commitment to innovation. We are also well positioned to replicate this experience in other geographies, and integrating the newly created Cybersecurity Working Group also allows us not only access but also the ability to influence and support the development of good practices. “
In its seventh edition, The Innovators recognizes entities that regularly identify new paths and design new tools in finance – the full report will be published in June.
“Financial institutions and governments worldwide are creating new spaces and modes of collaboration to better execute on financial technology,” said Joseph D. Giarraputo, publisher and editorial director of Global Finance. “Hubs, labs, centers, whatever you call them, they support innovations that deliver benefits to banks, their clients and society at large, nurturing both upstarts and stalwarts that excel in breakthrough thinking.”
The 2019 Innovators honorees will be recognized at the Global Finance Digital Banks and Innovators Awards Dinner on October 30 in Hong Kong. Here is the full list of honorees:
FINANCIAL INNOVATION LABS
CITY
Alior Bank RBL
Warsaw
Barclays Accelerator
Multiple Locations
Beta-i
Lisbon
BNY Mellon Global Innovation Centers
Multiple Locations
boostLAB Powered by BTG Pactual
Sao Paulo
Capital One Labs
Multiple Locations
Citi Innovation Labs
Multiple Locations
Cyberport
HongKong
DBS Asia X (DAX)
Singapore
Deutsche Bank Innovation Labs
MultipleLocations
Fidelity Center for Applied Technology/Fidelity Labs
The third edition of SIBS Payforward is on! The Bootcamp phase will occur from 13th to 16th of May in both Beta-i and SIBS headquarters.
Paying it forward
35 years ago SIBS started the startup way to turn into one of the World’s top Fintech innovators – SIBS has been providing new payment solutions and investing to perform in a constantly changing society, for the last 30 years.
Now it’s time to pay it forward by working with startups to test and grow in a global changing environment. That’s why SIBS is committing, for the third year, with a piloting program focusing on Fintech trends and payment solutions.
SIBS wants to embrace the possibilities of innovating together with other Fintech entrepreneurs, transforming the way businesses and consumers access and use financial products.
The Program
This open-innovation program aims to gather the best fintech startups to work in collaborating pilot with SIBS. For startups, this is an opportunity to join the most secure, modern, and reliable payment solutions player, who has a network of more than 300 million users.
For this edition, the program was looking for startups in technologies like Big Data, Machine Learning, APIs, IoT, AI and Cyber Security, that work in one of these for areas:
Security and Authentication
Client Behaviour and analytics
Payment Processes
Payment and future stores
The Bootcamp
The Bootcamp will happen between 13th and the 16th of May. To further improve collaboration between startups and SIBS, two days will happen at Beta-i, and the other two will happen at SIBS headquarters. Startups will get to know SIBS by being welcomed into their space.
The four days include workshops by the Beta-i team, on piloting and creating business case models, mentorship, talks by alumni of previous editions and several hours of co-work between the startups and SIBS.
The Bootcamp is an amazing opportunity for startups to get insights, mentorship and a potential partner. Like Denis Kiselev, CEO @SnapSwap, described:
We met amazing people. We learned a lot from them about the technology, about the market and about the product. So now we have a great user experience. It was mind-opening.
We can’t wait to meet all startups joining the program on this edition!
One of the characteristics that make Free Electrons a huge opportunity for startups is that it is truly global: the startups joining the program will get a chance to work with 10 global utilities, with experience and big markets under their belt.
Let’s get to know two of the utilities that are part of the Free Electrons utility alliance.
CLP
CLP was founded in Hong Kong in 1901, which makes it a centenary company. They provide the electricity supply to 80% of Hong Kong’s population and invest in the energy sector in mainland China, India, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Australia. Their business includes power generation, transmission and distribution, and electricity and gas retail activities.
We spoke with Austin Bryan, Senior Director of Innovation & Ventures at CLP, who spoke about the exciting experience the last edition of Free Electrons was. Both from the incredible feature of getting 10 global utilities working together and all of them working with 15 world-class startups in a truly collaborative environment.
I think the key thing is we did work with them, we collaborated. We didn’t treat them as suppliers, they didn’t treat us as customers. We came together to figure out what exactly it is that needs to be solved and how we do that.
Startups and utilities are very different in their make-up – startups come in with aspirations to ask questions and solve a problem, and the utilities come in with deep industry knowledge. This combination, and the bringing of these capabilities together to work on a viable product that can grow, thrive and actually solve a problem, is some of the most inspirational work they have done, according to Bryan.
Watch the full interview below:
DEWA – Dubai Electricity and Water Authority
DEWA is the solo electricity and water provider for the city of Dubai, doing everything from generation, distribution and transmission for the residents. They are committed to promoting Dubai’s vision through the delivery of sustainable electricity and water services at a world-class level of reliability, efficiency and safety.
We spoke with Shaima Alawadhi, Senior Manager of Global Partnerships at DEWA who explained that DEWA still has 4 pilot projects running that came out the last edition of Free Electrons. It’s a peculiar situation – as one of the pilots is integration in their highly secure technology that allows the other 3 pilots to run.
Because we are part of the government, we have to ensure that security is at its highest level.
The new branch of DEWA, called Digital DEWA, is focused on creating new revenue streams for the company, so looking forward in Free Electrons, they are looking for technologies (like A.I.) to leverage the assets the company already has – like data – to support new services they can provide to their customers.
See the whole interview here:
The first module of Free Electrons is almost here – it will happen on the 21st – 24th of May in Columbus, Ohio, home of AEP. The objective of this first module will be to match solutions with concrete challenges and define a collaborative roadmap for the first pilot among startups and utilities.
The third edition of Smart Open Lisboa (SOL), an open-innovation programme connecting some of the most relevant players in the residential and commercial real estate sector with startups to implement innovative solutions in the city of Lisbon, is currently in its pilot development phase.
This means the extraordinary startups that triumphed in the bootcamp are now developing solutions with the SOL Housing partners to be applied in the city of Lisbon.
Let’s meet some of these innovators and the solutions they are bringing!
Howz
Louise Rogerson, from Howz has a mission: to improve the living of elderly population so they can be independent for as long as possible. #SOLhousing #SmartopenLisboa
Publicado por Smart Open Lisboa em Quarta-feira, 10 de abril de 2019
Louise Rogerson, COO of Howz, has a mission: to improve the living of the elderly population so they can be independent for as long as possible. They developed a solution that measures an elderly person’s home electricity usage via clamps, sockets or from their smart meter and fuse this with data from other sensors. They then build up a pattern of daily behavior. Thanks to machine learning they identify unusual activity or trends and notify the family in case of abnormal activity.
Alfredo AI
Alfredo AI is a Portuguese startup that was born when its founders needed to find a house and couldn't find enough real-estate information. There are now innovating in SOL Housing.#smartopenlx #smartopenlisboa
Alfredo AIis a Portuguese startup that was born when its founders needed to find a house and couldn’t find enough real-estate information. They now provide real-estate stakeholders with a time-efficient and objective way to access the market and each individual property.
Bluetech Accelerator – Ports and Shipping 4.0 has closed its applications. An ambitious and innovative program looking to create a new batch of ocean startups, Bluetech attracted startups from all over the world.
The program received a total of 87 applications, from 29 different countries. Portugal and the United States were the most represented, with 13 startups each, followed by India, with 10 applicant startups, and Germany and the United Kingdom, showing the international reach of the program.
The challenges being tackled
Looking into the four main challenged areas that the program aims to find solutions for, we can see an overall response of more than 30% of startups tackling the challenge (with most startups tackling more than one area).
What comes next
The program has now entered its selection phase – the partners, supported by the Beta-i team, will select among the applicants 40 best startup fits to online pitch during ‘European Maritime Day’ – an annual industry-wide two-day event during which Europe’s maritime community meets to network, discuss and forge joint action. It targets maritime professionals, entrepreneurs and ocean leaders.
What follows the Online Pitch is a Bootcamp, starting on June 24th, where the selected startups will join the partners to prepare a piloting phase.
