Slovakian startup Excalibur is on the fast lane: after winning the ITU Young Innovator Award and StartupAwards.SK, they are now the winners of the Telekom Innovation Contest by Deutsche Telekom. Excalibur convinced the international jury and outperformed over 400 other applicants from 45 countries, the contest’s organisers announced. “It’s a great honour, but at the same time it’s a great responsibility,” CEO Ivan Klimek summed up the excitement of the team for inventures.eu. This year, the organisers were looking for innovative ideas in communication services, energy, connected home, cloud computing, and virtual platforms.
Excalibur tackles the problem of password protection and security. The idea is to transform users’ mobile phones into secure authentication devices. The solution is built on the trust between users and telecommunication operators, seamlessly combines authentication layers, and aims to keep sensitive information invulnerable from leaks, device theft or hacks.
Telecommunication companies will be the main partners of Excalibur’s service, which is why the team entered the competition “with the goal to reap the grand prize – a strategic cooperation with Deutsche Telekom.” Klimek clarified: “We knew that we have a grand vision, so we worked hard, and fine-tuned every detail of our technology for months and months.”
Deutsche Telekom will now support the team with 500.000 euros to develop their idea into a marketable product. The money will be given in resources such as executive support, hard- and software, as well as access of Deutsche Telekom’s marketing and distribution channels, which will help to take the product to market. “We now have access to so much know-how that we can plan to move forward much faster, and to boost our goals,” Klimek added.
After agreeing on a customised implementation plan, Excalibur will work with Deutsche Telekom’s support until the end of the year to develop the product. The final product or prototype will be presented at the Innovation Day in Poland.
Amongst the 12 finalists that got invited to the pitch day in Berlin, was also another familiar face: Brickflow, an app that allows you to turn your media into visual stories, and also a finalist at the Budapest Bank Startup Competition. The finalists came from three different continents. Three of them were Hungarian, Brickflow being one of them. The contest partners will also follow up on Cubilog, a Hungarian cloud-based data acquisition and controlling system, and Homee, a German smart home living assistant.
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