Top 10 finalists of the Swisscom Startup Challenge revealed

This year’s Swisscom Startup Challenge focuses on 5G technology with the goal to find the best five applications that will be further developed and tested at the Swisscom 5G lab. The global call for applications resulted in 125 submissions from 30 countries. Following a close examination of the solutions, the jury has nominated ten solutions with the greatest potential. Almost half of the finalists are working on applications that rely on autonomous drones and robots, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and Internet of Things.

The finalists solutions are:

Aero41, Aigle VD - AI-powered crop protection drone-system designed to carry and «surgically» deliver crop protection means while respecting the highest environmental standards.

Perspective Robotic, Zurich  – the ETH spinoff developed Fotokite Sigma, a tethered situational awareness drone that supports fire fighters and safety workers in emergencies regardless of the weather. By a single push of a button, the system flies up to 45 meters to provide teams with actionable information throughout their mission.

Hegias, Zurich – uses virtual reality to build the first browser-based and automated solution for visualization and communication in planning, construction and real estate sectors. The solution enables engineers’ and architects’ 3D plans including IFCs to be viewed and altered in a virtual world by one or more people at the same time together from any locatio

Morphean, Fribourg – offers a VSaaS (Video Surveillance as a Service) solution based on IoT and cloud technologies to improve security by providing intelligent and proactive monitoring. The data provided by each connected IoT device also enables companies to monitor trends and improve performance through actionable insights.

Qiio, Zurich – is developing a 5G concetrator that provides edge-to-cloud IoT solutions that allow customers to securely connect, monitor and control their assets. The q200 Concentrator is the world’s first plug-and-play cellular IoT solution based on the high-security microcontroller (Azure Sphere) developed by Microsoft

Rigi Technologies, Prilly VD – is developing the air Bridge to enable fully automatic aerial drone delivery between two or more locations within minutes.

Robotic Systems, Zurich – is bringing cutting-edge technology in teleoperation and automation for heavy machinery to a product level. The unmanned solution also allows humans to work in dangerous or remote places.  A famous product from the Lab is ANYmal.

Somniacs, Zurich – with the ambition to become the leading provider of immersive extended reality (XR) solutions, the company’s technology democratizes exploration opportunities and allows users to travel easily through space and time.

Smart Mobile Labs, Germany – with its core technology EVO (Edge Video Orchestrator), the company enables for the first time the secure, dynamic and high-quality distribution of video, audio and data streams over the mobile network in real time.

ZaiNar, Canada– provides real time location for any 5G device to within a meter in 3D. ZaiNar location is powered by patented advancements in signal processing for tracking phones, cars, drones and IoT without hardware changes and without additional battery drain.

Public Voting
From today, the public can vote for their favourite start-up. The start-up or research team that wins the audience award will win a ticket, sponsored by the program partners, to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year if the situation allows it.

Ten pitches and five winners
On 17 December 2020, the ten finalists will present their solutions to the audience and jury and only five will win the challenge. The winners will travel to Switzerland in March 2021 where they will have the chance to spend a week performing test cases on their 5G applications and prototypes at Swisscom’s 5G lab and in different locations and regions across the live network. They will be supported every step of the way by mentors and experts from Ericsson, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies and Swisscom.

(Press release/RAN)