Decisive criteria for the expert jury are:

• Uniqueness: What makes your solution unique on the market? Can the unique selling points be used as sales arguments?
• Innovation: To what extent is your solution truly innovative or even revolutionary?
• Competitive environment: Who does something comparable – why is your solution better?
• Specific benefits: For whom is your solution important, and what needs are being addressed?
• Features: Is your solution convincing in terms of quality, security, flexibility and usability?
• Reach: Who are the (potential) customers and users?
• Significance: What are the wider implications of your solution for the economy, society or the environment?

Further information on each criteria can be found in the respective category.

Are you a solution provider or an operator of Internet infrastructures? Do your innovative concepts and tools make data center operation particularly energy and resource efficient, redundant and fail-proof, highly scalable, physically secure or especially high-performace? Do your solutions or services offer your customers a unique market advantage, and stand out due to their innovative power? Are you breaking ground in marketing your services or products, or are you conquering new business areas in all areas of digitalization?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Datacenter Infrastructure!

Participation is open to companies whose business models range from micro and edge data centers to HPC, hosting & housing, colocation, and shell & core. The application can focus on areas that include power supply, climate control/cooling, automation (DCIM)/ process optimization, access security and network cabling. Operators of data centers can also apply in cooperation with a planning office, technology partner, or customer.

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Usability
  • How well is the service or product explained to the customer?
  • How easy is it for the customer to complete the purchase process?
  • How fast and how well are customers helped when they have problems?
• Quality
  • How stable is your product?
  • Are there seals of quality/certificate/audits for your product or service?

Do you offer an overall concept on the competitive hosting market that not only reduces the workload for your customers, but also inspires them? Do you convince your customers with a fast, reliable, stable and secure hosting offer and innovative solutions for individual requirements? Do you have a competitive advantage through your services, quality, usability, or value for money?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Hosting!

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Usability/ customer friendliness
• Diverse and out-of-the-ordinary services/package offers
• Clearly defined added-value services
• Flexible rates/contract terms
• Proof of quality (e.g. seals of quality, certification, attestation.)
• Special security features (e.g. data security, backup, etc.)
• Number of users/companies (if there are figures)
• Customer references
• Innovation factor

Do you offer an exceptional IT service or product that decisively contibutes to the security of company networks, endpoints, or internal processes and structures? Do your IT security solutions contribute significantly to the long-term economic success of your customers?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Security!

Companies/ initiatives can apply if

• the service/ product is clearly outlined and the scope of service is publicly verifiable
• the service/ product is available on the market and can be booked/ordered.
• the target group is well-defined (horizontally and verticallyàsegment).
• there is at least one documented customer reference.

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Can the service/ product be categorized
• Is there proof of quality for the service/product (e.g. seals of quality, certifications, attestation.)
• Is the service/ product distinguished by a particularly effective protection factor (e.g. DDoS capacity, encryption level, detection rates, etc.)
• Process relevance of the service/product
• Number of users/companies
• Customer references
• Innovation factor

Do you offer new business models based on Top-Level Domains (TLDs)? Do you have innovative services or software for the administration of domains in your portfolio? Do your solutions or services offer your customers a unique market advantage or does even the entire domain industry benefit from your activities and initiatives?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Domains!

Participation is open to companies that are active as registries, registry backend operators, registrars, resellers, consultants, or enablers in the domain industry, or are active in the secondary market. The prerequisite is that your business model is based on new services in which domains play a central role or that you carry out innovative marketing with creative domains.

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Is it a new business model based on domains or TLDs?
• Is it a new service based on domains?
• Is it a remarkable achievement that benefits the entire market?
• Is it an innovative concept for the marketing of domains?

Do you support your customers with unique IT services that enable them to overcome the hurdles on the way to the cloud, and to get the maximum benefit from it? Are you using innovative IT concepts to ensure that your customers achieve real added-value with the cloud? Is your IT service offering for the cloud characterized by especially high quality, security, interoperability or high performance in market exploitation?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Cloud!

Participation is open to companies with an IT service offering in the field of cloud computing, provided that the cloud service fulfills the following five criteria (based on the NIST definition):

1. On-Demand Self-Service: Provisioning of resources (e.g. computer power or storage) runs automatically without any interaction with the service provider.
2. Broad Network Access: The services are available through standard mechanisms via the Internet, and are not bound to a specific client.
3. Resource Pooling: The resources of the provider are available in a pool and can be accessed by many users (multi-tenant model). Although users do not know the exact resource location, it is possible to specify contractually the storage location (e.g. specific region, country or data center).
4. Rapid Elasticity: The services are made available quickly and flexibly, and in some cases automatically. Thus, from the user’s point of view, the resources seem to be infinite.
5. Measured Services: The use of resources can be measured, monitored and made available, according to the corresponding dimensioning, to cloud users.

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Can the service function be categorized?
• Is there any proof of quality for the service (e.g. seal of quality, certification, attestation.)?
• Is the service distinguished through special security features (e.g. DDoS prevention, etc.)?
• Are there any certificates (e.g. Star Audit, Code of Conduct, C5, etc.) which prove that your service is GDPR compliant?
• Is the service notable for the purpose of market exploitation (e.g. numbers of users/customers, increase in revenues, partners/eco system
• Is the service multinational (e.g. localization, language, legal framework, etc.)?
• Can it be connected to other systems/services via interfaces?
• How open is the architecture? Is the service interoperable and portable?
• How process-relevant is the service?
• Are there significant customer-references?

Do you offer digital services or digital business models that are not only new, but revolutionary? Does your company or project generate a clearly recognizable benefit for today’s society, economy or the environment? Is your solution scalable and internationally applicable? Does it offer users quantifiable advantages in terms of efficiency, performance or reachability?

Then please send us your application by September 2, 2019, and be part of the eco://award 2019 for the category Innovation!

Applications are also welcome from a consortium of actors with a joint public image.

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury's evaluation:

• Is the description of the innovative character plausible?
• How is the comparison and differentiation to established business models clarified?
• Is there a recognizable relevance for the economy, society or the environment, and is this documented by a neutral third party?
• Is the solution applicable in an international context (e.g. localization, language, legal framework, etc.)
• Does the solution provide a purely digital process, and is it scalable?

Are there any recognizable advantages in terms of efficiency, performance or reachability?