Award-winning technologies and innovations for the digital networked world.

This year the slogan of the competition is „City, Land, Network! Innovations for a digital world“. So the initiative „Germany – Land of Ideas“ and Deutsche Bank honor projects which provide solutions for the digital change. With “SkIDentity – Electronic Identity for Online Services“ ecsec GmbH provides an important contribution for the secure and user-friendly creation of a connected world, as electronic identity (eID) cards and signature cards can be transformed into secure and mobile usable “Cloud Identities”, which can be used in any cloud and web application for strong and user friendly authentication.

More than 1000 research institutes, companies, start-ups or associations from all over Germany competed with their trendsetting projects. Supported by a five-membered advisory board an independent 18-membered jury choose the 100 winners in the categories economy, culture, science, environment, education and society. “Out of the middle of economics, culture and society this year´s winners take the people with them on a way to a changed digital professional and social daily life. Germany´s connected future needs this creativity, eagerness to experiment and willingness to accept risks”, Jürgen Fitschen, co-chairman of the managing board of Deutsche Bank AG and member of the executive board of Germany – Land of Ideas e. V.

SkIDentity creates confidence and security in the „Network of Ideas“

After being distinguished for the„BürgerCloud“ idea last year, this year the innovative SkIDentity-service (https://skidentity.de/service), which was developed within the „Trusted Cloud“ program supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi), is among the “Landmarks in the Land of Ideas”. With SkIDentity various eID cards like the German eID („Elektronischer Personalausweis“), the Austrian social insurance card (e-card), the Estonian eID as well as several signature and banking cards can easily be used in cloud and web applications. SkIDentity allows to derive cryptographically secured “Cloud Identities“ from any standard compliant eID card, which can be transferred to almost any smartphone in order to be used for pseudonymous authentication or a self-determined proof of identity in the cloud.

„SkIDentity builds the bridge between secure eID cards and the more and more increasing cloud services. Secure online identification does not only help citizens and authorities to manage processes more efficiently, but it also makes business processes easier and more transparent to consumers and entrepreneurs”, Dr. Heiko Roßnagel, project-coordinator at Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO). „I am particularly pleased that by the use of SkIDentity the challenging eID integration is perceptibly made easier.”