Over 100 entries were submitted in the first round of the idea contest. Due to the high quality of the draft ideas submitted, 25 project outlines were actually given recognition as part of the pitch, rather than 15 as originally intended.
At the award ceremony held on 10 March 2021, the best ideas in the areas of ‘Knowledge & Learning’, ‘Administration & Democracy’, ‘Inclusion & Diversity’ and ‘Work & Participation’ were honoured by Federal Minister Hubertus Heil and commended by the experts representing the CIP’s circle of cooperation partners. The variety of the topics addressed by the ideas was reflected, with everything included from ideas to improve the working world and co-determination, participation and inclusion through to education regarding AI technologies, continuing professional development and lifelong learning.
You will find an overview of the winning project ideas here.
In addition to development support, the award winners will each now also receive prize money of up to 20,000 euros with which to further develop their ideas.
Above all, innovative ideas need diversity and cooperation
The winning ideas were presented by Anika Krellmann (organisation and information management consultant, Local Government’s Joint Agency for Administrative Management [KGSt]), Andreas Bethke and Jana Mattert (managing director and consultant, German Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted [DBSV]), Dr Matthias Peissner (institute director and head of Human-Technology Interaction, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering [Fraunhofer IAO]) and Daniel Abbou (managing director, KI Bundesverband e.V.) as representatives of the panel of experts. They all agreed in particular that cooperation between people from all the different disciplines is and must continue to be the key to innovative ideas. After all, practical solutions for AI providing benefits for the common good can only be generated on the basis of a combination of all kinds of different skills, methods and knowledge.
Federal Minister Hubertus Heil emphasised just how important this was right now in particular in these fast-changing and developing times: