Red Hat Innovation Awards

How does the Red Hat Innovation Awards nomination and selection process work?

Do you think you have what it takes to be a Red Hat Innovation Awards winner? Now’s your chance to share your innovative success story and be recognized for your contributions.

Customers can nominate themselves for an award, or they can be nominated by others inspired by their work during the two months that nominations are open.

Our panel of industry-expert judges will review and score the nominations (an average of 60 per year, based on past data), narrowing them down to the top 5 winning projects and 5 honorable mentions that meet our Innovation Awards criteria for outstanding work. The winners and honorable mentions will be publicly announced and showcased starting on the first day of Red Hat Summit 2019.

From the 5 winners, the 2019 Red Hat Innovator of the Year will be selected by the community through online voting. The winner will be announced at the 2019 Red Hat Summit held May 7-9 in Boston.

Read the 2019 Red Hat Innovation Awards terms and conditions for complete details.

Note: Not all countries are eligible. To find out if your country is eligible, go to section 2 of the terms and conditions. English submissions only.

What makes an Innovation Award winner?

Red Hat Innovation Awards submissions will be judged against 5 criteria, listed below. Judges will score each submission, and those that receive the highest scores across all criteria will be the 5 winners and 5 honorable mentions.

• Business impact: How is your project directly benefiting your organization? Is it impacting another line of business or ROI? Do data points show increased productivity, cost, or time savings? Share details about the project’s measurable impact.

  Example: To better support its digital transformation goals and improve its customer experience, BBVA used enterprise open source software—including Red Hat^® OpenStack^® Platform and Red Hat OpenShift^® Container Platform—to build a unified global cloud platform that is fully automated, self-service, and data-centric. With this new platform, the company has increased efficiency and integration to provide a better customer experience and support innovation.

• Digital transformation: Has your organization gone through a migration, optimized your existing IT, integrated apps or business processes, or quickly built more modern apps? Has it moved to the cloud (public, private, or hybrid), and are you using AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google? Clearly articulate why you needed to transform, share details of your journey, and illustrate where your organization is now by showing us the before and after.

  Example: To simplify its data infrastructure and deliver better customer experiences, general insurance group IAG needed to streamline more than 20 data warehouses, all built using different technologies with interdependencies and replicated data. Red Hat technology is bringing together disparate data sources into a single, scalable private cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution to improve customer experiences.

• Openness: Is your project leading innovation by building an open source culture, contributing to community projects, fostering DevOps, or promoting diversity, collaboration, and meritocracy? Is the project using open source technology to support a broad range of applications and business services? Tell us about it.

  Example: To enhance its services with better data insight and scheduling, UPS decided to create a new application platform, Center Inside Planning and Execution System (CIPE), to give package facility operators mobile, real-time data access. With assistance from Red Hat^® experts, UPS created a flexible, agile, container-based cloud computing environment. In addition, the company shifted to a more collaborative DevOps approach focused on continuous, iterative development.

• Community impact or influence: How is your IT making a difference in the lives of others? Are you improving your customer, end-user, or employee experiences day-to-day? Are you influencing an organization or agency to impact communities or your society?

  Example: Aiming to avoid manual processing of large volumes of data, DNM transformed its technology and developed the Migration Information Analysis Platform (SAM for its Spanish acronym). The company consolidated databases from different departments, public sources, and private sources into a single searchable data warehouse. DNM reports that it has experienced a 90% reduction in the time spent by analysts to detect and examine suspicious profiles.

• Cool factor: Does your project have a uniqueness and distinct vision showing innovation, creativity, and originality that we haven’t seen or heard of before?

  Example: To support its development and operation, Lufthansa Technik created a hybrid cloud infrastructure based on enterprise open source software from Red Hat. The team can now use agile DevOps approaches, automation, internal and third-party integration, and self-service capabilities to quickly iterate based on data and feedback. Lufthansa Technik provides an innovative maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) application, called AVIATAR, that helps the world’s top airlines optimize their technical operations.

What's in it for you?

Red Hat Innovation Awards winners will receive:

• 2 complimentary Red Hat Summit passes and 3 nights hotel accommodations. (Not applicable for government organizations)
• Speaking opportunities at Red Hat Summit.
• An invitation to a VIP reception at Red Hat Summit.
• Inclusion in the Red Hat Innovation Awards winner announcement.
• Promotion through Red Hat’s website, social media channels, and marketing campaigns.
• Multiple features in on-site digital and print signage at Red Hat Summit.
• Publicity in top industry publications.
• Opportunities to speak with key media outlets and top industry analysts.

Dates to remember

October 1, 2018: Nominations open

November 14, 2018: Last day for submissions

January 2019: 2019 winners notified

May 6, 2019: 2019 winners announced publicly

May 7-9, 2019: Red Hat Innovation Awards winners and Red Hat Innovator of the Year recognized at Red Hat Summit in Boston, Massachusetts

2019 Red Hat Innovation Awards judges

Ashesh Badani, vice president and general manager, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat

Marco Bill-Peter, senior vice president, Customer Experience and Engagement, Red Hat

Nick Costides, President Information Technology, UPS

Leigh Day, vice president, Marketing Communications, Red Hat

Sean Michael Kerner, senior editor, eWeek

Craig Muzilla, senior vice president, Core Products and Cloud Services Business, Red Hat

Al Sadowski, research vice president, 451 Research

Dale Walker, acting deputy & features editor, IT Pro, Cloud Pro, Channel Pro

Chris Wright, vice president and chief technology officer, Red Hat