The SLASSCOM Innovation Summit & Awards "Celebrate Ingenuity!" concluded yesterday (14th June) at the Cinnamon Grand, with a celebration recognizing innovators across a range of award categories in the IT/BPM industry. SLASSCOM would like to congratulate the winners and thank all the companies who participated at the event. It was encouraging to see over ninety submissions across seven award categories.

The Best Product Innovation was won by chargeNET with Paymedia and Synapsys as first and second runners-up respectively. In the Best Startup Product or Service category, CBA Solutions (www.payable.lk) were winners with StartupXFoundry (www.maturify.com) and Zeptolytics (www.zepto.io) as first and second runners-up respectively. The Best Client Delivery Innovation award was also won by CBA Solutions (www.payable.lk), with WNS Global Services FP&A and RR Donnelley Outsource as first and second runners-up respectively. PickMe won the Best Disruptor Award while CBA Solutions (www.payable.lk) and Igniterspace as first and second runners-up respectively. In the Best Innovation in Internal Process category, Embla Software Innovation were the winners with Virtusa Accello and RR Donnelley Outsource coming in as the first and second runners-up respectively. The Best Innovation in Business Process Management award was won by MAS Legato while Strategic Partnership Solutions and Infomate were first and second runners-up respectively. The Best Technology or Framework Innovation was won by iPay (www.ipay.lk) with Virtusa Airis and Route Perfect by Stax, awarded first and second runners-up respectively.

Two international judges commended the quality of the submissions. "All the entries were very good, unique ideas with impressive use of technology to solve specific issues. Thank you for allowing me to be a judge in this fantastic venture!" said Rene Gonzalez, Co-Founder and CFO, Bella Pear LLC. "After having done a preselection I went in depth for each project to select one and I have to say it was not an easy exercise. The winning company has great potential not only in Sri Lanka but also worldwide. It is clearly a great product and can also be a great tool for social inclusion. Most of all, all the selected projects could have won as they have their strengths and potential for improvements and I was really happy to see all of them" said Guillaume Alabert, CEO Prizle.

The keynote speaker of the Innovation Summit was, Dr. Soumitra Dutta, the Founder and Co-editor of the Global Innovation Index and the former Dean and current Professor of Management at the SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University. Dr. Lourdes Casanova, Senior Lecturer and Director Emerging Markets Institute, SC Johnson School of Business, Cornell University also addressed the gathering. The speakers of the panel discussion included Dr. Harsha Subasinghe, President and CEO of CodeGen, Dulith Herath, Founder & Chairman of kapruka.com and Heminda Jayaweera, Co-founder of Venture Frontier Lanka, and moderated by Anushka Wijesinha, Advisor at the Ministry of Development Strategies and International Trade (MoDSIT).

SLASSCOM also appreciates the event's Platinum Sponsors Auxenta (www.auxenta.com) and Hatch : Transforming Sri Lanka's Collaborative Workspace. The event was also supported by SLASSCOM's Corporate Sponsor Dialog Enterprise, the Exclusive Enterprise Communications Partner. Other sponsors and partners include SimCentric Technologies, Bronze Sponsor, the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) – National Partner, Lankan Angel Network – Ecosystem Partner, DailyFT - Official Newspaper, LearnTV – Education Learning Partner and ReadMe – Digital Media Partner.