HHLA Sky 2022 has been nominated for two prestigious German innovation awards: the TOP 100 innovator award, presented by science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar, and the German Innovation Award of the German Design Council. The winners will be announced in May and June.

HHLA Sky has two reasons to celebrate: the Hamburg-based start-up has made it onto two prestigious nomination lists from among hundreds of applicants: TOP 100 has been honouring medium-sized enterprises in Germany for exceptionally successful innovation management since 1993. The international German Innovation Award is presented for outstanding innovative products and industry solutions.

Nominated is the HHLA Sky Integrated Control Center, which can actively manage and control more than 100 drones in the air or autonomous vehicles on the ground both automated and simultaneously - as well as the development process that led to this innovative product.

"We've applied the latest technologies and tried things no one has done before," Matthias Gronstedt, Managing Director at HHLA Sky, explains, adding: "Our thank goes to our entire team for the extraordinarily high level of commitment that continues to drive our forward-looking technologies. We are very excited to hear the decisions by the expert juries." 

Those who have successfully made it from the application through the assessments to the nomination lists have already convinced the juries in regard to the decisive criteria - and have surpassed other applicants. This means that HHLA Sky can already call itself "TOP Innovator 2022". The top three winners of the TOP 100 award will be announced by science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar on 24 June in Frankfurt am Main, in three categories for different company sizes.

For the German Innovation Award, HHLA Sky is nominated in the category “Excellence in Business to Business – Aviation & Maritime Technologies". The award ceremony will take place on 24 May in Berlin.

Both awards rely on scientific selection procedures to determine the nominees, final placements and winners. Renowned jurors from business practice and research assess the innovative achievements of the applicants on the basis of numerous criteria.

TOP 100 focuses on innovation management and the associated processes. The jury considers the following questions, among others:

The five evaluation criteria are: innovation climate, innovation-promoting top management, innovative processes and organisation, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success.

The German Innovation Award, in contrast, takes a critical look at concrete products and solutions worldwide in 40 sectors in the categories:

Companies from all industries and sectors of the economy as well as non-commercial and governmental organisations worldwide can apply. The 12 evaluation criteria range from "functionality and usability" and "social, ecological or economic sustainability" to "market maturity, technical quality and function" and "economic efficiency" to "future viability".

Read more about the TOP 100 innovator award and discover the German Innovation Award, organized by the German Design Council.