ePaddle Equipment Contest

Winners and Jury

The ePaddle Equipment Contest is over and we want to thank everyone for their creative ideas, comments and discussions. We received some really great ideas, sketches and pictures!

On Friday, the jury had to make the hard decision to select the two winning ideas! After some great discussions and a presentation of the ePaddle a final decision was made.

Eventually these two ideas convinced the jury:

1st Place: “Gamification App for E-Paddle Users”

“A small camera (like a mini “go pro” could be attached to the epaddle’s handle) to take footage of the Gridboard from above. This could be connected to an app on the epaddle users’ smart phone. The camera could be used to take footage of the grid boarders' rides and stunts, which is uploaded to the app. Alternatively, the grid boarder’s friends could take videos of the grid boarder riding and upload it to the app. Using the paddle app, users can rate each other’s videos and share their scores via social media (thus promoting the epaddle widely to new users), learn about new “stunts” from epaddle “pros," complete epaddle challenges and arrange meetings with other users in the city. The app would be creating an epaddle community in the same way that there are communities for conventional skaters. The user could be awarded points each time they post a video or rate another user's video. As the user accumulates more points, they are able to view more videos from the experts. These experts could include people like Tony Hawk.“

2nd Place: EPADDLE_Helmet design

”The Epaddle Helmet design is based in the board design, using the main shape design references to connect this product to the rest of the Epaddle products. The board grid and the exterior shape are the main lines translated to the helmet design. The colors (black and orange) also create a connection between the helmet and the rest of products. The reflector lights on back of the helmet are an important detail to increase the user security. ”

The Jury

	Tarek Rasouli Tarek Rasouli is Founder and Managing Director of the sports marketing and communication agency rasoulution GmbH based in Munich. Tarek Rasouli has hands on experience as a former BMX- and mountain bike pro rider and is an important opinion leader of the global bike scene. He also sits on the board of the Freeride Mountain Bike Association (FMBA) as Vice-President and ambassador for the spinal cord research foundation “Wings for Life”.
	Michael Schmidt After his graduation as Industrial Designer in 1997 until the foundation of the HYVE AG in the year 2000, Michael Schmidt worked as a self-employed product designer and worked on contracts for companies including Porsche, BMW, AVIA and Premiere. In 1992, he passed the trade test as mechanical engineer which forms the base for his expertise in the field of manufacturing processes and construction. Between 1986 and 1989, he received his high-school-graduation in the U.S. and studied for one semester at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio.
	Prof. Dr. Johann Füller Prof. Dr. Johann Füller is Professor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Innsbruck University School of Management. He is Fellow at the NASA Tournament Lab-Research at Harvard University and visiting scholar and research affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management. As CEO of HYVE AG, the innovation company behind this contest, he makes sure that academic findings about innovation find their way into reality. Johann won numerous awards for his research in the fields of crowdsourcing, co-creation, and online innovation communities. In 2012 „Handelsblatt“, ranked him #33 among 3.000 professors in business administration across Austria, Germany and Switzerland. He is looking forward for your innovative ideas.
	Dr. Michael Bartl Dr. Michael Bartl has been CEO of HYVE AG since 2004. Prior to joining HYVE, Michael Bartl worked for the carmaker AUDI in the R&D division. He started his academic career with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Westminster London, a Dipl.-Kfm. from the University of Munich (LMU) and a Ph.D. from the Otto Beisheim Graduate School (WHU) in Vallendar on the topic of "Customer integration in NPD". Michael Bartl has authored numerous articles and papers on the subjects of Co-Creation, Open Innovation, Netnography, Community-based Innovation and future developments in Innovation Management. He is the author of the E-Journal “The Making-of Innovation” (http://www.makingofinnovation.com) and a regular speaker and host at innovation and other industry conferences. Since 2011 Michael Bartl is as an elected member of the national executive committee of the German Association of Market and Social Research (BVM). In 2012 he was appointed as German senator to the Senat der Wirtschaft which is part of the Global Economic Network.
	Christopher Anton Christopher Anton is the Creative Director of the largest event production and supply company in New Orleans. A dual citizen of the United States and Germany, Christopher received his education at Oberlin College before attending art school for a Bachelors degree in Interactive Media Design. His areas of focus primarily include innovation, predicting user behavior and business process improvements. He blogs about innovation and international travel at www.ImproveThisExperience.com and has earned recognition in several crowdsourcing and co-creation contests for companies including HYVE, Mastercard, Lufthansa, and Marriott.
	Matthias Ramoser Matthias Ramoser is already working 14 years for the German Skiing Association in the field of marketing. The first 6 years he was responsible for the equipment pool of the national teams. Since 2007, the qualified businessman was in charge for the German Ski World Cup in the field of TV production and coordination and event coordination. Through his father he became passionate about boarding and started windsurfing and water skiing with the age of 5. He almost tried everything regarding to boarding sports. As skateboarder he took part in 2 downhill world championships. In the last years he used his free time more for spending time with his wife and two daughters surfing and standup paddling.