For the 13th time the most prestigious award of the Digital Economy, the German Multimedia Award (DMMA), has been presented to outstanding projects in the embassy quarter in Berlin. The DMMA awards innovative online and offline applications. The award ceremony took place at the end of the German Multimedia Congress (DMMK), the annual summit of the Digital Industry.

From left to the right: Marcus Te Rehorst, CEO of SONSEC and honoured guest as one of our first customers; Ansgar Bittermann, CEO Global Emotion and Prof. Dr. Ralf Schengber (ifmm e.V.), award speaker

All in all, the applicants included some very famous companies, such as Coca Cola, BMW, ZDF, Mercedes and Walt Disney. After the initial evaluation round (jurors included Vodafone and Daimler AG), 304 companies were eliminated and 62 products were officially nominated in 12 categories. Global Emotion was competing against Samsung and BMW in its nomination category ("Interactive Services"). Considering that even to be nominated is seen as an accolade among experts, our entire company was really pleased when we prevailed against these big-name companies.

The Future Award (Zukunftsaward) is the award of the Zukunftsinstitut (Future Institute) from Kelkheim. The Zukunftsinstitut is a think tank with international focus. They develop future scenarios for the economy, politics and society (www.zukunftsinstitut.de) based on data sets and multi-medial scanning processes. The Future Award recognizes the excellent conversion of social trends into sustainable products and rewards the pioneering spirit of enterprises. The most important criteria for this innovation award is the coherent correlation between social change and the economic response to that change.

Previous award winners include SkySail with its sail drive system for tankers, the German Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra for a brave social innovation, the company "Rodenstock" with its futuristic glasses "Informance", and Merain with its "Scout Navigator".

Picture 1. Dr. Natalie Lotzmann, Head of Diversity, SAP hands Ansgar Bittermann the award

126 innovations applied this year for the Future Award 2008. The jury was composed of top-class jurors from the fields of economics, science and media (e.g. Brand eins, Audi, SAP, Swarovski). There were famous names such as Opel AG, T-Systems, the Swiss chemical company CIBA, the computer company Logitech, Moevenpick Restaurants, RWE and the OTTO group.

Global Emotion was awarded the Future Award in the category "Best Service Innovation". In the above picture you see Ansgar Bittermann at the award ceremony with Dr. Natalie Lotzmann, Head of Diversity, SAP, in Kronberg on the 4th of June.