The mood at this year’s IT-tradeshow „Systems” in Munich, Germany was not all too enthusiastic: Declining numbers of both exhibitors (1,260) and visitors (53,000) cast a hazy light over the electronics industry. This 25th edition of this exhibition targeted at medium-sized businesses was centered on the topics of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), storage solutions as well as security issues.

Despite the decrease in interest in this international gathering of high-tech companies, many exhibitors drew a positive conclusion. New prospective contacts were made and interesting connections established. An even more promising perspective can be attested for the winners of this year’s “Founder Award” sponsored by the German Government to acknowledge aspiring new companies with groundbreaking ideas.

The winner of this year’s newcomer award is the Potsdam-based company Vis-á-pix, which developed an intelligent video-software. With help of their so-called IQ-100 series, users can easily search through large video archives to detect just what they are looking for. Instead of only taking file-names into account when searching for scenes, this program lets directors and cutters browse through the actual clip by detecting movements and elements of the recorded sequences. Besides video and movie productions, this software could come in handy for security issues. Once a surveillance camera records “typical” movements, they could alarm response forces immediately. Needless to say this type of observation bares numerous problems such as privacy laws.

Another innovation that was honored at this year’s newcomer award at the Systems tradeshow is the Taurus Necktrainer. What sounds like the name of a gym supervisor is a combination of virtual reality and robot technology. By measuring the exact forces that affect the human spine in certain situations, much needed information for sports and furniture technology can be collected at last.

These forward-looking innovations by aspiring newly founded companies clearly allow for an optimistic look into the future. While the Systems tradeshow has not reached its goals of attracting more visitors, it has for sure lived up to its promise of presenting promising new trends and future innovations.