EIC Awards Ceremony 2025

Okay, so good evening everyone. Welcome to the 17th annual EIC Awards, which is live from Berlin. In case you didn't know, you're in Berlin.

Oh, little laugh there. Good start.

So, my name is Paul Fisher and I'm actually a lead analyst, not the yet, but a lead analyst with KuppingerCole. And I'm Christie Pugh. I'm one of the customer success managers in charge of our new membership program. And I don't think you could guess this, but we've practiced this a lot.

Yes, well, Berlin's a crazy old town, isn't it? Oh, absolutely.

You know, you live here and you've seen some sights. I've seen some things. I hear last year you actually saw a man walking. I did not.

Hey guys, tonight we're celebrating the most innovative and impactful contributions in the world of identity, cloud, and cybersecurity. Isn't that right, Paul? Yeah. And this guy, he was only wearing a thong and rubber boots. And you said, Bertolt, what are you doing walking around like that? I don't think I said that. What I said was, we have the privilege today to introduce this year's awards. We have two separate categories, isn't that right? That's right. These awards are the cornerstone of EIC, recognizing outstanding achievements that shape the future of digital trust and secure access.

Absolutely. And it's a pretty big honor to be even nominated for this award. And to win it earns you bragging rights for years to come. And honestly, we love that, don't we? We do. We do. So to kick it off, we want to introduce the first category. We do. The first award tonight, and I think we've caught up now. We did. With the screen. So our first award tonight honors digital ID, a space that is evolving rapidly and touching the lives of millions, from the public sector right through to private sector identity ecosystems. Everything that we talk about here at EIC. Yeah.

Everyone on this list has worked tirelessly over the years to create a more secure, seamless, and sovereign digital identity world for all of us. So we can walk through this new and changing, exciting adventure together more confidently, right? That's right. Yeah. Okay. So let's look at the finalists. Up there behind me, we have Ku8, which is an oil company, in case you didn't know. AVL List GmbH. That's German. Nailed it. Yeah. SRG.

And then, apparently, the entire city of Rotterdam. So congratulations. What an accomplishment. Yeah. So let's see.

Again, I promised we practiced this. The winner now. You have the card.

Oh, yes. Yes. So hang on. Which one is it now?

Oh, goodness. It's to build suspense. Sorry. I'm nervous. I've never done this before. So the winner is, I hope. Yes. It is SRG. Where are they? Congratulations. So I will say, unfortunately, SRG wasn't able to attend today. But instead, their partner in this award, Vidas, is here to accept. Congratulations. But this award was very important. So... Well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We do have a message from SRG. Good evening, everyone. And thank you so much for this award. We are very happy and proud that we have received it.

Of course, a big thanks also to everyone at Vidas and at Securix, who were really, really important for our project. I wish you all a nice award evening and a good conference.

Hopefully, I see a lot of you during our session tomorrow when we can tell you more about this project. Enjoy the evening. Congratulations. To learn a little bit more about this project. Yes? Yeah. So... So... Okay. One last round of applause for Vidas, Securix, and SRG.

Well done, everyone. I don't know about you, Paul, but when I'm shopping online... Yes? I like to know that my identity is protected, yeah? Yeah. With your identity, it needs to be, huh?

Listen, I'm an important person. All right. On to our next and final award. Something that is equally important to all of us here. Enterprise Identity and Access Management.

Yes, indeed. And IAM, as it is, you may know, shortened to, is the backbone of secure digital transformation. And tonight's finalists have demonstrated excellence in everything from just-in-time access to governance at scale. So let's meet the finalists.

Well, not literally. Let's see them. The finalists are BP, DB Schenker, State Zurich. I did practice that in German, but I didn't feel like embarrassing myself today. So State Zurich. Pretty good. Yeah. Habib Bank Limited and BP PLC. And the winner is, Paul? And the winner in this category is State Zurich.

Ah, congratulations. Excellent. Congratulations, guys. Another round of applause. Thank you. And I believe we also have a short video for you all as well. It is an honor for us at IC Consult to be here today with the City of Zurich, our clients, receiving an award for their outstanding IAM project. For us at IC Consult, this has been a very interesting and also quite challenging project, especially because the City of Zurich has very diverse audiences to be addressed, ranging from citizens, businesses, etc., but also to plenty of diverse internal groups.

That includes not just the city's department, but also fire brigades, blue lights organizations, and even the hospitals. Yeah, we are also deeply honored to receive this award. As you know, or not, the City of Zurich consists of 11 divisions and over 80 departments that are wildly different. As Stefan said, police, fire department, electricity, small and big ones. And we had to consider many, many different requirements in order to get this project running and the product. And it all turned out very well.

And again, thank you for this award. And thank you to the project team and all involved parties. Thank you. Excellent job, guys. Congratulations. Thank you. And I think that video shows just how up-to-the-minute these awards are. Absolutely.

You know, because there they were outside. Well, I think it is great. Over the last 17 years, we celebrated a lot of good projects, a lot of good companies. And it's a really cool thing to see this evolution happen right in front of our eyes. So we want to thank everybody who's participated, who submitted projects, the finalists and the winners. We want to continue this celebration for years to come. But more importantly, I think we want to continue the celebration tonight. Yeah? That's right. Don't forget, after this, and we kept it short after comments from last year.

So we now have happy hour. Or happy several hours, in fact. Yeah. Choose your own adventure. There is food trucks outside. There are drinks. There are snacks. There are drugs.

No, there's no drugs. Sorry. I promised we'd practice this beforehand, guys.

Anyway, thank you again. Thank you so much. If you ever want to learn more about how to get the most out of a couple of your goals, research, engage with us. Please let us know. You can reach out to me directly. Ask me about the membership. It's brand new. It's kind of exciting. And it can help you in your projects, help you meet your goals, and really make you shine in front of your boss and make a more secure world. So I want to thank Paul, because that wasn't stressful at all. And I want to thank you all.

And if you do want tips on how to present an awards ceremony in the future, then we're ready to help you. Yeah. And Bertolt, please tell me you found that funny.

Ah, good. He's only pretending to laugh. We will see you outside to continue this. Have a great evening, everyone.