Yves Elomo, Technical Managing Director, Divizend Luxembourg; Credit: FEDIL

On Wednesday 21 June 2023, the Cloud Community Europe – Luxembourg, organisers of the Luxembourg Cloud Awards, announced the winners of the 2023 edition during the Golden-I Gala at the PwC Luxembourg auditorium.

This year, the finalists were:

  • Telindus, with the “Telindus Arc enabled U-FLEX with Azure Confidential Computing” project offering access to public cloud functionalities from a local environment;
  • Gcore, with the "IPU Cloud Infrastructure as a Service" project, which allows any organisation wishing to deploy applications based on artificial intelligence and machine learning to access a cloud environment that meets its specific needs;
  • Alsego, with the LetzRelay solution, an innovative cloud solution for securing incoming emails, aiming to contribute to enhanced protection against phishing attempts while raising user awareness of the risks.

Aimed at cloud service providers, consultants, cloud startups as well as their customers and innovators from all sectors, the Luxembourg Cloud Awards aim to reward the service offers’ creativity, originality and flexibility, the approaches to transformation and migration to the cloud, as well as the overall quality and completeness of the applications submitted.

The competition covers cloud services offered on the Luxembourg market, whatever their form.

In the “Cloud Innovation Project” category, the award aims to reward excellence and innovation in the field of cloud-based “solutions as a service”. The winning project has to integrate a cloud solution that has transformed business agility. The achievements can relate to the optimisation of the cost structure of the technological investment, to the agility and flexibility in terms of scale and/or time to production of an IT project or to the complexity resolved and maturity gained in best practices, including availability and security. The “Cloud Innovation Project” aims to return to an achievement that creates value and has an impact.

Emphasis is also placed on the go-to-market stage and features offered through cloud resources. According to the organisers, the services provided must adhere to data security and privacy requirements with respect to customer data sensitivity and compliance.

The prize in the “Cloud Innovation Project of the Year” category went to Alsego with the LetzRelay solution. Pascal Steichen, President of the 2023 jury, explained: “Current cybersecurity challenges are primarily focused on securing the supply chain and, as we all know, SMEs are often the most vulnerable. LetzRelay, Alsego's solution for protecting messaging infrastructures, specifically targets them, which was considered by the jury to be a key differentiator. Another aspect of the solution is its ‘scalability’, which is particularly important when dealing with a multitude of entities of different sizes.”

Marc Van Oost, CEO Alsego and LetzRelay Advocate, said: “What a wonderful surprise. We take this as recognition of our work. From a personal point of view, as with any new solution that starts, it allows you to face doubts with more confidence. Many thanks to Cloud Community Europe Luxembourg for all this!”

In the "Cloud Tech Innovator" category, the prize recognises the creativity of a new product or a new solution that has been developed thanks to the power of the resources of the cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS or hybrids). The competition is open to cloud-native startups (less than five years old) in two contexts: a cloud user who transforms cloud resources into an innovative product or solution or a technology startup that offers new advanced cloud features. Particular attention is paid to the originality and creativity of the solution. The award is also open to concepts, pilots, initiatives, etc. that are not yet in production.

The prize in the “Cloud Tech Innovator of the Year” category went to Divizend Luxembourg, which offers an automated solution for investors to enable them to easily recover the overpayment of dividend tax deducted at source by foreign tax authorities.

“The Divizend solution responds to market demand for process automation in the digital age. The jury particularly appreciated the possibilities of deployment in different cloud environments using the highest security standards,” commented Pascal Steichen.

“Thank you very much for this recognition, we are delighted with the market response and being cloud agnostic makes it much easier for us to deploy in all jurisdictions. Thank you all for your support and support on behalf of Divizend. We must all work together to accelerate the capital Market union and a digital recovery solution can only help,” said Yves Elomo, Technical Managing Director from Divizend Luxembourg.

All applications were evaluated by a jury made up of independent experts from different areas of expertise: cloud, cybersecurity, public research, government representatives and the startup community.

Marc Van Oost, CEO, Alsego & LetzRelay Advocate