HTNG Presents 2020 TechOvation Awards

Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG), a technology solutions association for the hospitality industry,  revealed that four finalists have been named as winners of the 2020 HTNG TechOvation Award competition. The winning solutions are enseoCONNECT by Enseo, InnSpire ReviewMagic.AI by InnSpire, Nonius Cast by Nonius, and YooniK ID by YooniK.

The annual HTNG TechOvation Award program brings together the latest industry innovations from hospitality technology solution providers all in one place. The first round of the competition hosted video presentations of the participants’ solutions online and featured a hybrid competition format, which combined crowd-sourced voting and selection by an expert panel of judges to determine the 10 semi-finalists.

Due to ongoing travel restrictions, the second round of this year’s TechOvation Award competition was held as an entirely virtual online event on May 21, 2020. Similar to previous years when the final round was held in-person at HT-NEXT, the semi-finalists presented four-minute overviews of their solutions and their impact on the hospitality market. The solutions were also available to attendees to review via virtual “booths” in a simulated exhibit hall.

Similar to the traditional process, HTNG’s judging panel narrowed the field to four finalists. The final crowd-sourced voting process did not clearly determine one sole winner this year, so HTNG has named all four deserving finalists winners of the 2020 TechOvation Award.

These winning entries include:

enseoCONNECT, Enseo

enseoCONNECT allows guests to use their own mobile devices to control their TV, room lights, window shades, thermostats, and other connected devices in their room. This unified remote approach does not require guests to download an app, maintain a login or touch the guest room remote. Guests do not even have to join the hotel Wi-Fi network. Instead, guests simply pair with the TV for instant access and control of their entire connected in-room experience.

InnSpire ReviewMagic.AI, InnSpire

What if hoteliers had a simple dashboard that continuously interpreted the entire world of online reviews for them and their teams, and made sure any issue got flagged, quantified and fixed? An AI that relentlessly scanned, analyzed, understood and prioritized the untamed onslaught of data out there – and visualized it in simple graphs and to-do’s – and either fixed issues automatically, or assigned the right person to the job? That is ReviewMagic.AI, designed to close the feedback loop.

Nonius Cast, Nonius

Nonius Cast offers guests a homelike Chromecast experience. Guests only need to be connected to the Hotel Wi-Fi. Nonius believes this is the best solution on the market in terms of usability and compatibility with existing TVs and Wi-Fi infrastructure. Any TV or Wi-Fi is supported.

YooniK ID, YooniK

YooniK ID is an identity SaaS cloud platform which allows hoteliers to instantly recognize loyal customers with 99.99% accuracy, in full compliance with data privacy regulations, and quick and easy onboarding via mobile or kiosk. Using facial recognition, YooniK ID allows hoteliers to have truly frictionless check-in and restaurant access as the hotel environment and objects, such as room doors, front desk, breakfast lounge can rely on AI to recognize customers.

"Like many new endeavors, planning our first virtual event was a learning experience, but a worthwhile and necessary one," said Michael Blake, CEO of HTNG. "As our mission states, we continue to try to move the industry forward and unfortunately during these times we are all faced with challenges to overcome. I would like to thank our contestants, sponsors and attendees for your participation and support in this new format, and we encourage you to catch our next virtual event on the UgoVirtual platform."

The TechOvation virtual platform, powered by UgoVirtual and sponsored by Comcast Business and Deep Blue Communications, will remain open through June 20. HTNG encourages individuals to visit the platform to view the recorded program, access and download content from the semi-finalists, and most importantly, maintain their industry connections by networking with others. The TechOvation event platform can be accessed here.