What Is A Blockchain Challenge and How to Pull It Off?
We announced the winners of the first ever Aviation Blockchain Challenge in partnership with the Lufthansa Group, last month — wrapping up a six-week period of high intensity (akin to bitcoin trading circa 2017). We wanted to see how far we can push the blockchain enthusiasts/entrepreneurs of the world.
The dust might’ve settled, but the inbound questions kept on coming…
Other innovation units from around the world wanted to know: how did we manage to pull it off?
Step one: define clear goals and set expectations
Our goals were to find innovative solutions utilising blockchain in the aviation industry to inspire out-of-box thinking within and outside our respective organizations. We wanted to bring together enthusiasts, entrepreneus, developers, and the wider ecosystem to see how we can merge tech and aviation. This meant that we had to define certain categories for idea submission.
The Challenge [is] an experiment to validate different hypotheses around the applicability of open innovation formats in the context of new technologies, specific industry use-cases, and a co-creative enterprise setup. No one knew what would happen when two industries joined forces.” — Tino Klaehne, Senior Service and Business Designer at Lufthansa Innovation Hub
We named our challenge “Aviation blockchain Challenge” (#ABC2018- does anybody use hashtags anymore?) and began to create digital assets to share with our curated list of industry influencers. We used
to organize our project, brainstorming sessions, and general progress.Next we got to writing blogs and interviewing blockchain evangelists in our respective organizations to generate some shareable buzz (again #ABC2018). To sum this step up: find evangelists that see the logic in all the madness and can then help you reach your target audience.
Also, we had a summer intern who was crazy about blockchain rand personally promoted the challenge on all kinds of forums, Facebook groups, and online communities — it helps to have a social media native in your midst (and a self-identified hobby-developer). The challenge went VIRAL — over 55 media outlets picked up the initial press release.
Step two: Find the right partner and the right sponsors (Top level Executives and people who are passioate about the topic)
Big organizations like SAP and Lufthansa Group also come with the added benefit of 100,000+ employee eyes. In order to get on the corporate portal, we needed to identify key executive sponsors that can bring our mission to the main stage. For us that meant enlisting Deepak Krishnamurthy from the SAP side to help us position the challenge and provide a stamp of “strategy” approval. Similarly, Thorsten Dirks, CEO of Eurowings and Board member of the Lufthansa Group, helped spread the message across geographies and employees. Case in point, 11% of the 300+ applications were submitted by internal employees!
Step three: host live events to ensure open dialogue, answer questions and keep the buzz alive!
“All nine finalists addressed deep-rooted challenges of the aviation industry…We deeply appreciated the business-driven approach to all posed problems” — Artiona Bogo, Blockchain Business Development Manager at SAP
The six-week submission period garnered more than 300 idea submissions from across 56 countries (and 5200 unique website visits). Experts from SAP and the Lufthansa Group helped select three finalists for each category of the challenge: “Traveler Challenge”, “Airline Challenge” and “Supplier Challenge.”
The verdict:
We hosted a pretty high profile event to announce the finalists. Blockchain and aviation experts were invited to weigh in on the ‘Global State of Blockchain’ and the audience didn’t hold back on asking the tough questions — including the obvious one “why blockchain?”
Following the selection, the nine finalists spent the next three weeks working with SAP.iO mentors and experts from SAP, the Lufthansa Innovation Hub, as well as the Lufthansa Group, to further develop their ideas/solutions and get pitch perfect for the jury. They then had to present their refined unique selling propositions to an expert jury during the annual Lufthansa Innovation Forum on October 23, 2018.
“We discovered outstanding teams and interesting blockchain applications in aviation worldwide.” — Christian Langer, Vice President Digital Strategy at Lufthansa Group
Our 9 finalists (and winners) are—
In the “Traveler Challenge”category — the 3 finalists submitted blockchain ideas revolving around the entire travel journey and offering clear benefits to travelers:
· Sweetbridge (winner)
· Avinoc
In the “Airline Challenge” category — SAP and Lufthansa blockchain experts identified submissions that provided the finalists focused on business solutions and ideas utilizing blockchain technology in operations and associated processes. The finalists are:
· 500labs (winner)
· Vchain
· BagX
In the “Supplier Challenge” category, the finalists provided business ideas on how to apply blockchain technologies to maintenance and other aspects of the supply chain in the aviation industry:
· 14bls Supply Tracking (winner)
So how did we do?
“The cooperation between SAP.iO and Lufthansa Innovation Hub has proven oneself as a great match: we brought the Travel & Mobility Tech expertise to the table, while the SAP.iO team contributed tangible Blockchain knowhow and a vast network in the respective ecosystems.” — Gleb Tritus, Managing Director at Lufthansa Innovation Hub
Congratulations to the winners, who are now developing their solutions with SAP and Lufthansa.
In Alexa Gorman’s (SAP.iO SVP) words:
“You are truly some of the most exciting and innovative Blockchain companies out there!”
