Zurich Innovation World Championship

The global Zurich competition offered start-up companies with a ‘fintech’ product or service, the opportunity to become one of three global winners and the chance to launch a pilot working with Zurich in a country of their choice.

From the many entrants who applied, a shortlist of four companies were invited into present to a panel of Zurich judges consisting of Brona Kernan, Head of IT, Sarah Pierce, Head of SME, Seán Carty, Head of Online & Digital and Pól O’Briain, Product Solutions Actuary - with the judges tasked with picking just one winner from four very strong entries.

First up to present was Cian O’Flaherty, CEO of Safecility. Cian talked the judges through Safecility’s Property Management technology that provides smart building compliance and lowers the risks for building occupants, property owners and Insurers. Property compliance teams can view a dashboard filled with information by a network of sensors, to identify and resolve issues faster. 

Seán O'Tuama from Cork-based Firemole came next. Their focus is on fire prevention - providing innovative products to make customers feel safer in their homes. Firemole’s product is engineered to detect excess heat on devices in homes, offices and workplaces and an in-built alarm alerts the owner to overheating devices to help prevent fires before they happen.

Next up was James O’Toole, CEO of ID-Pal. ID-Pal enables companies to verify customers' identities using document database and biometric checks. ID-Pal captures customer's information using a mobile app and gives the business the ability to onboard the customer end to end in less than a minute.  

Aimee Carton CEO and Aaron Murphy from Keep Appy offered a personal wellness app with seven core features including - tracking, personalised content, mindfulness, goal setting, journal writing, community challenges and geo-specific partnered helplines. Keep Appy works directly with companies and HR functions to give real time insights in to the wellbeing of their employees.

And the winner is...

Following the Ireland round, the judges took some time to deliberate and after much debate, ID-Pal emerged as the winner for Ireland.

ID-Pal will move on to represent Ireland at the EMEA competition on December 7 in London. Nine Zurich countries will be represented in the EMEA round including UK, Italy, Portgual, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Turkey and ZINT – with only two companies moving forward to the final global round.