Fielddrive and Zenus joint winners Tech Watch Awards

Fielddrive and Zenus are joint winners of IBTM World's Tech Watch Award. Kubify is the new ‘Tech Watch People’s Choice Award’ winner during the international trade show for the meeting industry at Fira Barcelona.

Event technology trends

A panel of well-known industry experts judged Zenus and Fielddrive as the overall IBTM World Tech Watch Award winners from a shortlist of nine finalists, for their pioneering and impactful work in bringing facial recognition software to the events industry. The new ‘Tech Watch People’s Choice Award’ has been introduced to recognize the finalist with the highest number of online votes from members of the MICE industry in the run up to the event. Corbin Ball, Chair of the IBTM World Tech Watch Award: “This year’s award certainly points out significant event technology trends for our industry. Zenus and Fielddrive are among the first companies to bring this technology to events. Zenus is the creator of the software, and Fielddrive has been a significant implementor of the product by exploring and measuring the onsite best cases for use. Together, they make a strong team, developing facial recognition for the events industry. They exemplify the goal of the IBTM World Tech Watch Award – to showcase important innovation to advance this industry.”

Facial recognition software

“We’re thrilled that Fielddrive are joint winners of the IBTM World Tech Watch Award," Danny Stevens, Founder and CEO of Fielddrive said. "Our efforts with Zenus on full integration of facial recognition technology, together with Fielddrive’s kiosks, full colour badge-printing and global deployment, has set a new standard in the meetings industry. Zenus and Fielddrive were separate entries, however because of the interlinked nature of the two companies they were judged as one entry. Zenus offers high-end security facial recognition for event registrations, enabling a fast and easy check-in and Fielddrive provides on-site technology services for conferences, tradeshows and events.

Interactive e-poster system

The very first Tech Watch ‘People's Choice’ award went to Kubify, an interactive e-poster system that offers a simple and creative way to improve the standard poster session. Attendees use an app to search posters by subject/keyword, interact with the poster, post comments, ask questions and rate/cast a vote for the best poster. Kubify offers a fresh, interactive way to manage this important segment of many scientific meetings. Tamsin Treasure-Jones, Co-Founder, Kubify: “We’re absolutely delighted to have won the Tech Watch People’s Choice award. We’d like to thank the users of our platform and IBTM attendees for voting for us, and IBTM for giving us the opportunity to exhibit. It’s been an incredible experience, we’ve made lots of fantastic contacts and had some valuable discussions. We are looking forward to coming back next year.”

Panel of judges

The panel of judges was formed of high-profile professionals from the events and technology industries including Michelle Bruno, President of Bruno Group Signature Events; Dahlia El Gazzar, Founder of DAHLIA+ Inc; Ruud Janssen, Founder of TNOC.org and co-founder EMG; Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner at SoolNua; Paul Hussey, Director of The Conference Doctor and Julius Solaris, Founder and Editor of Event MB.