Announcing the winners of the 17th annual Red Hat Innovation Awards

Since 2006, Red Hat has used the Red Hat Innovation Awards to recognize the technological achievements of Red Hat customers around the world who demonstrate creative problem-solving to make a positive impact on the business world and on society. This year’s winners are Airbus, Banco Galicia, KPMG and Verizon. 

A community-wide, online voting process will determine which customer is distinguished as the 2023 Red Hat Innovator of the Year. Voting is now open and will close at 9 a.m. ET on May 18. The winner will be announced on May 23, 2023, during Red Hat Summit. To vote for the 2023 Red Hat Innovator of the Year, visit www.redhat.com/en/success-stories/innovation-awards.

Let’s take a closer look at this year’s winners.

Airbus

Airbus pioneers sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world. The company within its divisions, constantly innovates to provide efficient and technologically-advanced solutions in aerospace, defense, and connected services. In commercial aircraft, Airbus offers modern and fuel-efficient airliners and associated services. Airbus Defence and Space, for its part, is the European leader in defense and security and one of the world's leading space businesses. In helicopters, Airbus provides the most efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions and services worldwide.

To support its sustainability focus, Airbus decided to develop a digital marketplace to encourage its teams to share unused assets internally in a circularity mode. Using Red Hat OpenShift, a modern application platform powered by Kubernetes, Airbus introduced the Second Life platform in several divisions. The container environment also supports more than 300 applications on 19 servers. Airbus’ teams can now reduce their operational footprint by finding reusable assets, while also reducing project delays and costs. With this scalable and secure solution, Airbus is continuing to improve its environmental impact, and support its sustainability ambition.

Banco Galicia

To become the most customer-focused bank in its financial market, Banco Galicia set a goal of reducing time to verify new corporate clients from three weeks to just one. Working with Red Hat Consulting, the bank built an AI-based intelligent natural language processing (NLP) solution on Red Hat technologies. Now, when a customer goes through the bank’s onboarding process, they can submit their documentation which is run through an automatic process, removing much of the need for human interaction. 

The updated process is able to reduce the processing time for new corporate clients from days to minutes, with 90% accuracy, up from an original accuracy target of 80%. The bank’s clients now enjoy an onboarding process that is 100% digital, transparent and self-managed. Banco Galicia hopes to use the model in other areas of the business as it continues the transformation journey. 

KPMG

KPMG worked with Red Hat to create the Resource Integration Suite (KRIS) Connected Platform to help residents most in need get support from state government agencies. KRIS connects siloed monolithic legacy information systems that support citizen support services such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF), and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP), with modern microservices based applications to give residents a single digital experience. These services are traditionally fragmented and only accessible via individual websites. 

To help states consolidate these services into a single entry point, KPMG built KRIS using a modular approach that allows services to be added and scaled while maintaining security. Red Hat technology supports the SaaS based integration, shared services, and data platform that underlies KRIS. While the platform was developed for state governments, KPMG sees broad applicability in other government agencies and industries, and is looking forward to expanding in partnership with Red Hat. 

Verizon

Today’s organizations’ new smart business models and services increasingly rely on ubiquitous connectivity. 5G transformation will provide connectivity to innovative solutions in industrial automation, smart cities, connected healthcare, and more. Verizon wanted to be the first telecommunication operator to offer them a solution.

Verizon needed a platform able to handle any disruption during the rollout—reboots, software updates, disaster recovery events—without losing data, to ensure an uninterrupted positive customer experience. To support their clients’ innovation, Verizon used Red Hat technology to drive their 5G transformation at speed. The service provider’s 5G core is largely built on Red Hat’s platform, allowing the organization to modernize applications and modify hundreds of complex workflows essential to an efficient rollout of 5G technology.