Second place went to the company ForkOn from Haltern am See with its forklift truck management solution, and third place to the start-up asurveyor.com from Cape Town with its app for quality control of fruit and vegetables across the entire supply chain.

The final of the Digital Logistics Award took place on the first day of the "Zukunftskongress Logistik - 37th Dortmunder Gespräche" congress. A jury of experts had nominated eight start-ups and start-ins in advance, who had applied for the "Digital Hub Logistics" award with their digital and innovative logistics solutions. The
"Digital Hub Logistics" recognizes creative busisness concepts for production, retail, mobility, farm & food, the financial sector and other industries with the award.

Founded in 2016, NÜWIEL is driven by the vision of freeing urban spaces from noise, congestion and air pollution: The electrically powered bicycle trailer developed by the Hamburg-based start-up for last-mile logistics has patented technology so that it can automatically follow the movement of a bicycle. Co-founder Natalia Tomiyama was delighted to win first place at the Digital Logistics Award: "Our product is often underestimated because it doesn't seem very innovative at first glance. But there is a lot of intelligence in the trailer, i.e. sensors and software." Companies such as UPS, IKEA and Airbus are therefore already on the list of pilot projects that NÜWIEL is already successfully implementing.

ForkOn from Haltern am See came in second place. The company makes the management of forklift fleets simpler and more transparent. The manufacturer-independent software solution from the start-up, which was founded in 2017, brings together, analyzes and interprets all the data relating to a company's forklift fleet. The result is to
the costs of forklift fleets can be reduced by 25 percent on average.

With a simple app, the start-up asurveyor.com from Cape Town wants to help small and medium-sized farmers from Africa to provide international customers and insurance companies with proof of the initial quality of their products and simplify the quality control of fruit and vegetables across the entire supply chain. The idea earned the founders third place in the award. The blockchain-secure solution, which is due to be launched on the market in February of next year, also provides automated status reports from remote areas.

With their nomination for the final, all eight teams received two free tickets in advance to attend the Future Logistics Congress as well as a free exhibition space. In a five-minute pitch, they were able to present their start-up idea to more than 500 decision-makers from the logistics industry. Participation in the final thus offered
opportunity for all teams to make new contacts in the industry. In addition, first place received 15,000 euros, second place 8,000 euros and third place 3,000 euros as support for market entry. The three winning teams will also represent their company at the German Logistics Congress in Berlin.

This year's Digital Logistics Awards jury consisted of Marcus Gropp (Kloeckner Metals Operations GmbH), Dr. Stephan Peters (Rhenus SE) and Christina Thurner (LOXXESS AG) as well as Claas Nieraad (Next Logistics Accelerator) and Karolin Hewelt (Digital Hub Agency RCKT).

The "Digital Hub Logistics" in Dortmund, supported by the Fraunhofer Institutes for Material Flow and Logistics IML and for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, EffizienzCluster Management GmbH and Duisburger Hafen AG, aims to drive forward the digitalization of the logistics sector in Germany. It goes back to an initiative of the
digital association Bitkom and is part of the Digital Hub Initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) with twelve hubs across Germany.