Company honoured for its innovative strength / Ranga Yogeshwar congratulates at award ceremony in June
Heimertingen – Newly crowned innovation champion: blackned GmbH from Heimertingen has been awarded the TOP 100 seal 2024. Only particularly innovative medium-sized companies are honoured with this award. Science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar will personally congratulate blackned on this success at the award ceremony on 28 June in Weimar. Yogeshwar has been mentoring the TOP 100 innovation competition for twelve years.
On behalf of compamedia, the organiser of the competition, innovation researcher Prof. Dr Nikolaus Franke from the Vienna University of Economics and Business and his team examined the innovative strength of all participants on the basis of more than 100 criteria from five categories: Innovation-promoting top management, innovation climate, innovative processes and organisation, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success. “Are the companies able to create new products, new services, new processes and new business models? And are these achievements just coincidences or the result of a structured and targeted approach? These are the questions we analyse at TOP 100,” says Nikolaus Franke, explaining his approach to the review. It is also important how and whether innovations and product improvements have been able to establish themselves on the market.
blackned prevailed in the scientific selection process and is one of the top innovators for the second time. Since its foundation in 2009, the company has specialised in the development of software-based defence solutions. With its tactical middleware RIDUX in particular, the company forms the heart of the architecture for the digitalisation of land forces. The associated digital ecosystem TACTICAL CORE, which was developed by blackned, creates a future-proof and open framework for the implementation of digitalisation projects within the NATO armed forces. “With a clear focus on advanced technologies and customer-centric solutions, blackned strives to provide innovative products and services to effectively meet the digital transformation needs of the armed forces,” says CTO Dr Joel Langenberg.
To ensure equal opportunities, the TOP 100 seal is awarded in three size categories: up to 50, 51 to 200 and more than 200 employees. In the 31st edition of the innovation competition, 388 SMEs applied for the award. 287 were successful and have carried the TOP 100 seal since 1 February 2024. A maximum of 100 companies per size category can be honoured.
On 28 June, all of the top innovators of the year 2024 will gather at the “congress centrum weimarhalle” for the award ceremony as part of the German SME Summit. Ranga Yogeshwar will be there to personally congratulate them on their TOP 100 success.
TOP 100: the competition
Since 1993, compamedia has been awarding the TOP 100 seal for special innovative strength and above-average innovation success to medium-sized companies. Prof Dr Nikolaus Franke has been the scientific director 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 over 200 publications, he is one of the leading innovation researchers internationally. The mentor of TOP 100 is the science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar. Project partners are the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research and the BVMW association of small and medium-sized enterprises. The magazines manager magazin and impulse accompany the company comparison as media partners, ZEIT für Unternehmer is a co-operation partner. More information and registration at www.top100.de.
