Written by Wibu-Systems AG from Karlsruhe has won the TOP 100 award 2023 for the company’s prowess as an innovation leader. The accolade goes only to the most innovative small to medium-sized enterprises in Germany. On 23 June, the popular German science communicator and journalist Ranga Yogeshwar will be congratulating Wibu-Systems’ key representatives in person at the official award ceremony in Augsburg. Yogeshwar is the mentor of the TOP 100 innovation competition.
Starting in 1993, compamedia has been awarding the TOP 100 award to SMEs with exceptional innovative potential and above-average innovative successes. Professor Dr. Nikolaus Franke has been the scientific advisor for the process since 2002. Franke is the founder and director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. With 26 research prizes and more than 200 publications to his name, he is considered one of the world’s leading innovation researchers. Renowned science communicator Range Yogeshwar acts as the mentor of the TOP 100 award; project partners are the Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research and the SME association BVMW.
The competition uses a strictly scientific selection process: On behalf of the award sponsor compamedia, the team around Professor Nikolaus Franke, innovation researcher at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, put winners like Wibu-Systems through their paces with more than one hundred individual criteria tested in five categories, asking whether the candidates’ top management team, climate, processes and structures support innovation, whether they are open and outward looking, and whether they are practically successful with their innovations. Of particular interest for the process is whether innovations occur as chance byproducts of routine operations or whether they are systematically planned for and reproducible.
Innovation is the fuel for lasting commercial success. The future belongs to pioneering companies like Wibu-Systems whose innovations add real value and meaningful benefits for people, while staying sustainable, fair, and ethical. Our contribution is a safer digital life as part of a smarter economy, a more respectful digital society, and a healthier planet.
Oliver Winzenried, founder and CEO of Wibu-Systems
This is Wibu-Systems first inclusion among the top innovators. The company was founded in 1989 by Oliver Winzenried and Marcellus Buchheit who continue to manage the company. Wibu-Systems has established itself as a technology leader in the protection and licensing of software and data, including AI models or 3D print designs used in industrial additive manufacturing. It offers an extensive, award-winning portfolio of patented solutions for copy and know-how protection, licensing, and security that prevent theft and manipulation on anything from embedded devices and PLCs to PCs and cloud systems.
Oliver Winzenried, founder and CEO of Wibu-Systems, is proud of the TOP100 award: “Innovation is the fuel for lasting commercial success. The future belongs to pioneering companies like Wibu-Systems whose innovations add real value and meaningful benefits for people, while staying sustainable, fair, and ethical. Our contribution is a safer digital life as part of a smarter economy, a more respectful digital society, and a healthier planet. We care about working with our partners and research institutions, not least as part of the exceptional ecosystem in our hometown of Karlsruhe, and about contributing to standardization in our field. That is why we have invested in the dedicated House of IT Security with its IT Security Club here on the Wibu-Systems campus, supporting our efforts in this area and in many other major technologies of tomorrow, like post-quantum cryptography and artificial intelligence.”
“With the TOP 100, we are verifying how important the commitment to innovation is for the companies we are screening”, says Professor Dr. Nikolaus Franke, the scientific head of the competition. “Do routine and habit hold sway, or are the companies able to challenge their set ways, get creative, and get new ways established in the markets? We are analyzing that key ability with more than one hundred criteria in our selection process.”
On 23 June, all top innovators of the year 2023 will be meeting in Augsburg to attend the award ceremony at the German Mittelstand Summit, where Ranga Yogeshwar will be on stage to congratulate them in person for their successful bid for the TOP 100.